


Dark Sister

by LovelySilverwood (Eanna23je)



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Arya Stark-centric, Dark Jon Snow, F/M, Jon Snow Needs a Hug, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, Jonrya Week 2020, Knights of the Realm, M/M, POV Arya Stark, Protective Gendry Waters, Teacher-Student Relationship, The Blades Royal Academy, The Red Keep (ASoIaF)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:34:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eanna23je/pseuds/LovelySilverwood
Summary: After years of pushing to be better, faster, smarter, Arya Stark is finally living her dream of attending Blades Royal Academy. Nothing can possibly ruin her chances of earning her gilded spurs and becoming a Knight of the Realm like her hero, Ser Brienne. Not even ridiculously sexy dark princes...For Jonrya Week 2020 Dream of Spring Day 4 Prompt: Teacher/Student
Relationships: Arthur Dayne/Daenerys Targaryen (mentioned), Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Edric "Ned" Dayne & Arya Stark, Edric "Ned" Dayne/Gendry Waters, Jamie Lannister/Brienne of Tarth (mentioned), Jon Snow/Arya Stark
Comments: 92
Kudos: 138
Collections: Jonrya Week: A Dream of Spring





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ser Brienne walked calmly down the line, turning her back to Arya. “Becoming a knight will be the hardest thing you have ever had to do. If you work very hard, and do not give up, and never complain, you may find yourselves rising above yours and our expectations. Upon receiving your spurs, you will be a Knight of the Realm.”

Arya rocked on the balls of her feet, hoping to be rid of her nervous energy. No matter how much she battled her expressive eyebrows to keep still, she could not help drinking in her surroundings with starving eyes. 

The hall she had just entered housed the most infamous gym in the kingdoms. Men and women had trained here since the time of the Second Conquest. The lovingly polished floors gleamed in a way so Arya could see her reflection as she slowly turned a circle. Her gaze remained fixed on the endless rows of swords, hammers, maces, and shields displayed on the walls. Blades that had belonged to legends. 

“Get it together, Stark,” she hissed under her breath.

Two boys nearest to her gave her sidelong glances before ducking their heads and whispering together. 

_“Boy, girl, You are a sword, that is all,”_ her dancing master once said.

She had been ignoring boys for years, and barely clenched her fists tighter as her focus settled in the Valyrian blade, _Dark Sister_. 

Arya had dreamed of this place, this _moment_ , from the first time she’d seen her first sword-fighting competition on the telly. 

Jamie Lannister had been pitted against the legendary Brienne of Tarth, and the match had been _glorious_. Two opponents evenly matched, on and offscreen, as Arya would later learn. At that point in time, they’d moved with tempered rage. 

Mesmerized, Arya had ignored all sounds around her, fixed on the way they moved. Her family had been amused after when she’d declared she would one day win this competition. 

_“You have the same spirit as my sister, Lyanna,”_ Father had said with a smile, drawing her close, _“But you are yet a wolfling, and not ready for the big screen, I fear.”_

 _“Then teach me, Father!”_ Arya had demanded. 

The Stark family did give a collective sigh, knowing Ned could never ignore his favorite’s demands. 

Ten years later...

Ten years of aching limbs and Syrio Forel doing his best to drill control and honing Arya’s wolfsblood. 

_“The steel must be part of your arm. Can you drop part of your arm?”_

All while she ignored thoughts of a normal social life, or friends, of anything but shaping her small but powerful frame into a weapon. 

Arya finally convinced Syrio she was ready, on the day she’d been ready to give up. Ironically, it was after she stopped begging that her “dancing” instructor gave in. 

_“Remember this in the capital, girl: the_ true _seeing, that is the heart of swordplay.”_

Ten years fixated on only one dream and she was finally _here_ , in King’s Landing. She wasn’t just going to become a knight, she would be the best in all seven kingdoms. 

The Royal Blades Academy was the most prestigious and difficult school for knighthood in Westeros. Housed in what was once the Tower of the Hand, twelve hand-picked students were chosen each year. 

“Initiates!” A deep, booming voice broke through the whispers of the students. “Form a line.”

Arya whipped around and her jaw unhinged at the glorious sight of her hero. Ser Brienne of Tarth stood at least a head taller than the tallest student, her back straight and hands clasped behind her back. 

Arya blinked as Ser Brienne’s bold blue gaze cut to Arya and a blonde eyebrow lifted. 

“Shit,” she hissed under her breath as Arya rushed to stand at the end of the line. Few girls, even in this modern age, made it as far as Arya had. She needed to pay attention to prove she deserved just as much to be here as any boy. 

She lifted her chin and kept her focus ahead until Ser Brienne finally turned to measure the other students. 

“You are here today, not because you are the best in your classes. Being the best will not win your spurs. No, you are here because you are the most _promising_ candidates we have seen cross our desks in years.”

Arya glanced at her competition from the corner of her eye and barely repressed a smirk at the way they puffed up against the Lord Commander’s words. She couldn’t wait to size them up.

“Every day, you shall report here in the small hall at five in the morning for your morning run. Everyone here will be assigned chores and a job to do, until the day you are chosen to squire under a knight who chooses _you_.” 

Here Arya lifted her chin higher and held her breath as Ser Brienne’s blue gaze settled briefly over her. 

_Choose me_ , a small voice within whispered. It was everything Arya had dreamed of. 

Ser Brienne walked calmly down the line, turning her back to Arya. “Becoming a knight will be the hardest thing you have ever had to do. If you work very hard, and do not give up, and never complain, you may find yourselves rising above yours and our expectations. Upon receiving your spurs, you will be a Knight of the Realm.”

Every student’s head turned slightly as Ser Brienne walked behind them. Arya’s gaze found _Dark Sister_ again and a familiar old hunger grew in the pit of her stomach as the Lord Commander continued. 

“Some of you may remain on, to teach the next generation. Others shall hold the privilege of policing and guarding the Seven Kingdoms. Still, there are a rare few…” 

Arya blinked as her new master crossed before them and paused to reward them with a closed-lipped smile. 

“Those who show the greatest dedication and honor shall go on to become Queensguard.”

Arya dared close her eyes briefly. 

“I want you all to choose a weapon from the rack over there, then return to take first stance. We’ll begin with our own melee to gauge where you all stand. Let’s see what you can do, initiates.”

Arya forced her feet to calmly saunter across the room, as the two boys who had noticed her earlier rushed ahead. The tall, burly one reached for a hammer, but the shorter ashen haired boy grabbed a hand-and-a-halfer. 

She smirked as they paused to watch her walk between them and reach for the single Braavosi blade. The tall one snorted then blanched as she cut a harsh glare his way. “Got something to say, Bull?”

Bull glanced at his friend, then shrugged. “Not sure how good that little needle’s gonna do against us.”

The ashen boy nodded, violet-blue eyes glimmering in the hall light. “Gendry’s right, you’d best pick something tougher.”

Arya allowed her lips to curl into a full smile and savored Ash-boy’s flinch. “I’d wager I’ll be twice as quick as either of you with my needle, then your bastard sword.”

“Mad, that one,” muttered Gendry the Bull as Arya pivoted on her toe and rejoined the others. 

“First stance!” Ser Brienne called. 

Arya turned side face and held her blade up, hearing Syrio’s voice in her head as she whispered, “Swift as a deer. Quiet as a shadow. Fear cuts deeper than swords.”

“Begin!”

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

The last thing Arya expected was to become friends with Gendry Waters and Ned Dayne. It might have never happened, had they three not been the last standing in the first melee. But Arya was dismayed and grudgingly pleased to find them evenly matched in different ways. 

Ser Brienne seemed amused when all three ended up knocking each other to the floor, tripping as they tried one last move to pin the other down. Her full lips had twitched and Arya became lost in the sapphire blue of the Lord Commander’s gaze, the blue she hoped would guide her future. 

“Good,” their instructor said. “The rest of you are free to break to mess. Initiates Stark, Waters, and Dayne, you three may join the others after cleaning up.”

It was as they each forced their fatigued limbs to carry and clean up their classmates’ mess that Ned began with, “Arya Stark? I’m Edric Dayne, of the Starfall Daynes, but everyone calls me Ned. Did you know I was named for your father?”

Arya had simply sniffed as she regretfully replaced her new needle on its rack. “Who the fuck cares, Starfall?”

Ned had gaped, but Gendry guffawed and soon all three were laughing as they finished. 

Misery certainly bred company in the case of the first-year students at Blades Royal Academy. 

Their other classmates hailed from all over the kingdoms. Two golden-haired Lannister bastards, a Greyjoy, a Payne, a Hardyng from the Eyrie, three commoners from the Reach, and a blue-haired boy simply called Egg. 

Arya was the only girl, and the only Northerner, which suited her just fine. She shared a bunk with Ned, and had a wall on one side, with Gendry on her other in their third-floor dormitory. 

It soon became clear that everyone was there for good reason, and over the coming days, Arya won their respect. With the exception of two.

Greyjoy and Hardyng were insufferable asses, and they never lost an opportunity to jab at Arya. 

“You shouldn’t goad them,” Ned simply explained during one of Arya’s rants as they jogged about the wall of the Red Keep. 

Arya rolled her eyes. “Everything about me goads them, stupid.” 

Gendry agreed with Arya, as he always did. “Shut up, Ned.”

For the most part, the students managed to get along, because Ser Brienne and the other instructors—including the infamous Ser Bronn, and Ser Jamie—ran them ragged. 

For two weeks, they knew little else besides training, eating, and sleeping. 

Throughout the day they were set to various tasks, in groups and individually. Arya was given the lucky duty to muck the stables. 

“I really don’t mind,” she insisted when Ned turned up his nose at this. “I like horses.”

“Sure she does, Arya _Horseface_ ,” Theon called from behind them on their way to mess. 

Gendry turned red in the face. “Watch it, Greyjoy.”

Arya simply turned to favor the squid with the curling smile Ned dubbed _the Stranger._ “Sorry I’ll be cutting into your special time with the horses, Greyjoy.” 

The blue-haired boy, Egg darted past them then, but not before nearly knocking Theon off his feet and winking at Arya. She couldn’t help returning his grin. For all that he was mute and possibly unhinged, Arya liked Egg. He wasn’t afraid to dance with a Braavosi blade either.

The others didn’t dare laugh, as Headmaster Barristan Selmy suddenly appeared from a dimmed doorway. “Headed to mess, are we, initiates?”

Arya didn’t miss his wry smirk as she lifted her chin and replied, “Aye, Ser.” 

"Then you'd best get to it." Headmaster Selmy nodded briefly to them before turning back to the doorway, and the man waiting within. “Come, then, your grace. I believe you've had more than enough time to make a decision.”

"Do not test me, Selmy," a rasping voice replied. The stranger wore black and kept to the shadows, yet Arya caught a brief glimpse of silvery eyes fixed upon her before Gendry urged them on. 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

The morning everything changed, Arya hadn’t woken to her alarm—which was usually Gendry shouting her name.

She had been dreaming of silver eyes in shadows again, and a dance of dragons when the warning bell tolled somewhere in the tower. 

“Shit!” Arya threw her covers aside. “Shit, shit, shit!” 

She jammed her feet into her boots, thankful for once she’d fallen asleep in her uniform after the day’s grueling schedule. Arya had barely finished cleaning mud off her boots before literally falling into bed. Days off regular training were only filled with more chores the instructors chose to torture the initiates with, or so Gendry claimed. 

She rebraided her hair in a simple plait, cursing as she raced from the dormitory. Her path led down the winding staircase to the first floor. Arya panted as she zipped through the corridor leading to the Small Hall, and entered the gym to find her classmates already lined up. Gendry and Ned were fortunate their backs were turned, so they missed Arya’s death glares. 

_Little shits!_

Another sweep of the room and relief sapped the tension from her shoulders. Ser Brienne was late as well, apparently. 

A whisper of leather and cloth was her only warning before a sword half as tall as Arya swept over her head. 

She ducked backward on instinct, catching her fall with her fingertips and sweeping her leg beneath her attacker's. 

The man grunted yet barely budged as he settled the point of his bastard blade beneath her chin. 

She couldn’t breathe and didn’t dare move. Not even as her cheeks pinked, not at being caught unawares, but because the man wielding the blade was unbelievably handsome and _cold_ in a way that made her think of running through the wolfswood with Nymeria. 

Arya swallowed past a lump of homesickness and pressed a hand to her heart to battle the strange sudden longing the blademaster’s silvery gaze evoked. 

“Let that be your first lesson,” his deep, rasping voice carried through the still room. 

Arya grimaced as she remembered they were not alone. That cold gaze settled back on her, and she prayed he didn’t see how unmade she was.

“Never let your guard down. Especially in the Red Keep.” 

For another awful minute, the blademaster kept his blade to Arya’s throat, and something strange and wild stirred behind the steel of his dark-gray eyes. 

Then the blade was gone, and his leather-gloved hand filled her vision. 

Arya drew in a shuddering breath as she accepted his offer. His hand was warm through the glove, and Arya frowned as he pulled her to her feet with ease. 

“I am Ser Jon. Lord Commander Brienne has asked me to take over your lessons for the day,” he spoke to the class but kept his focus on Arya.

She squeezed his hand on reflex, then reddened in mortification. What would he think of her?

_Let go of him, stupid!_

Arya released her grasp of Ser Jon and was puzzled as he waited for a beat too long to do the same. He was frowning at her too, she realized. 

“Everyone choose your weapon,” he called to the initiates, and Arya bit her lip before running to obey with the others. 

She snatched one of two Braavosi blades the same moment as Egg, and for a moment they paused to exchange nervous grins. So she wasn’t the only one unnerved. 

Good. 

“First stance,” he commanded. 

She could only hope she didn’t muck this up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we're back at Day 4 of JonryaJune :D I hope everyone has been enjoyed all the wonderful new content as much as I have! For today's Teacher/Student fic, I'd originally pictured a more traditional Uni story, where Arya shows up for class and Jon is her professor. Madness ensues ;) At nearly the last minute, however, I started to think of what I would want to read. Thus the Blades Royal Academy was born, lol. I do hope everyone enjoys! I have five chapters outlined, but this could potentially go longer. In the meanwhile, happy reading :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was too beautiful to be ignored, as hard as she'd tried.   
> As hard as she tried, he found fault with her. 

Arya couldn’t seem to please Ser Jon no matter how many times she perfected the movements he led them through. 

Ser Brienne and the others had been testing their grasp on fundamentals while gauging their strengths and weaknesses. Arya and Ned had agreed upon this within the first week. They understood the real challenge was yet to come. 

Arya never imagined it would come in the form of this dark stranger who seemed more ghost than man. Besides that brief glimpse days before in Headmaster Selmy’s company, none of them saw Ser Jon outside the gym. 

None of them were late after Arya’s very physical and awkward chastisement, though a tiny rebellious part of her considered being late again—just to see.

Nothing ever went the way she wanted it to, of course. She’d arrived at Blades Royal Academy with delusions of being stronger, faster, and smarter than her peers. Yet what Ser Brienne claimed held true. Each of them was here, not for being “the best,” but because they were unique. Be it the Lannister bastards’ cunning, the Reach lads’ dedication, or Egg’s ability to do anything except what was predictable. 

Arya found refuge with the horses now, in the prolonged absence of her mentor and hero, and against the unrelenting hand of their new bladesmaster.

“He criticizes us too,” Gendry insisted.

Yet Arya couldn’t help wincing every time that cold voice snapped at her from across the gym. Any more than she could help drinking in every scrap of detail she gleaned from stolen glances. His dark curls were always pulled back severely from his face in an almost-Northern style. His hands were hot through his gloves every time he appeared like a shadow at her back, to correct her stance. 

Though the others—Greyjoy and Hardyng in particular—earned his ire, Ser Jon never seemed to be pleased with Arya’s increasing desperation for improvement. 

“Again,” he would simply say in that rough voice, eyes gleaming like Valyrian steel as he watched Arya push her body through the dance. 

_Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords._

Her former master’s mantras had always brought Arya comfort and peace in the midst of chaos. But where was peace when all she could hear was Ser Jon’s voice in her head now?

“Slower, Stark. You’ll die quicker rushing into Dayne’s attacks like that.” 

“Faster, Stark, or do you have a death wish?”

“You can do better than that, Stark. _Anticipate_ his next move.” 

He never raised his voice like Sers Jamie or Bronn, yet something in Ser Jon’s voice and presence pushed Arya to reach higher than ever. And every time she closed her lids, to see the flame in her mind and hear Syrio Forel’s voice in her head, dark silver eyes waited instead. 

He was too beautiful to be ignored, as hard as she'd tried. 

As hard as she tried, he found fault with her. 

A week later and he continued to haunt her dreams and plague her waking hours. But she was relieved to find she wasn’t the only one on edge. 

Gossip could always be relied upon in the form of the future Lord of Starfall. Ned kept his ear to the ground, thanks to his shifts mopping floors near the Council chamber. 

He caught up to Gendry and Arya just as they were leaving mess for their dormitory. “You will never believe,” he paused to catch his breath, “what I just heard!” 

Gendry rolled his eyes and shared a long-suffering grin with Arya. “Lemme guess, Ser Bronn’s _also_ sleeping with Ser Jaimie?” 

Arya snorted and then raised her eyebrows as Ned caught both their shoulders and tugged hard. “Steady on, Starfall,” she said. “What’s got your curlers in a twist?”

Ned shook his head. “Would you two _listen_ to me? What I am _trying_ to tell you, is that Ser Jon is the bloody _Prince of Dragonstone!"_

Arya winced as her friend’s voice reached a new decibel and turned to Gendry. “He’s _your_ boyfriend.”

It was a new development, true, but Arya had been pleased to discover Gendry had a calming effect on their excitable friend.

“You don’t believe me.” Ned crossed his arms over his chest in a decided pout.

Gendry shrugged but nodded to Ned. “Look, love, the last two rumors you brought us weren’t exactly true, now were they?”

“Besides,” Arya said with a snort, “why in seven hells would the prince waste his time with a bunch of initiates? Certainly, he has better things to do than torture us every day?”

Ned stamped his foot. “In case you _hadn’t forgotten_ , my uncle Arthur is married to the queen?” 

“Oh, gods, not this again.” Arya rolled her eyes and took a step back until they were forced to turn and face her. “Look, Starfall, we get that you’re important. What doesn’t make fucking sense, is how you wouldn’t have already met Ser Jon, if he even _is_ a prince.”

Gendry folded Ned in a comforting embrace while favoring Arya with a look. “You gotta admit, she's got a point.”

Ned shook his head. “I wasn’t raised in the Capital, you berks. Besides, the Prince of Dragonstone hasn’t been seen in court in nearly a decade. And the only time we visited the Capital when I was a boy, was for the Royal Wedding. It wasn’t exactly a picnic, you know.”

“Scared of the Dragon Queen, are you, Starfall?” Arya taunted and ignored Gendry’s annoyed glance. Riling Ned up was one of her few constant sources of entertainment. 

Ned narrowed those lovely lavender-blue eyes of his. He really was too pretty, though she understood his appeal to the Bull, she supposed. “You would be too if you’d actually seen her dragons.”

“Doesn’t the prince keep two of the dragons on Dragonstone, though?” Gendry interrupted.

Ned nodded, never taking his focus from Arya. There was true fear in his eyes now, and his voice lowered to a whisper. “They say she uses them to punish traitors to the Crown.”

Gendry nearly choked. “No way, no, I can’t believe that. We’re not living in the Middle-Ages, love, that’s gotta be against at least fifty laws.”

Arya’s lips curled back into _the Stranger_ and Ned drew closer against his boyfriend’s side. “We could always tell the queen you’ve been spreading rumors, and see if it’s true.”

"Shut up, Arya," Gendry growled.

Arya shook her head. Ever since they'd started snogging, the Bull had been too quick to defend Starfall.

"Dragons aren't even the worst of it," Ned groaned and wrinkled his pretty nose. “What bothers me, is why the heir to the Iron Throne would need to become a knight when his aunt is Queen? Everyone knows he is closer in the line of succession, according to the old laws."

Arya rolled her eyes. "The old laws are bullshit."

“I’ve heard rumors about the prince in the tavern my mum works,” Gendry said in a low voice, as though the walls around them had ears. “They say he was banished from the court, and how he’s only heir until the queen can have a child with Prince Arthur.” 

Ned nodded and bounced on the ball of his feet. “Yes, exactly! But why, if he was banished, would he return now to train _us?"_

Arya rested her hands on her hips and cut a wicked grin. “How much you wanna bet _Prince Jon_ was banished for his refusal to wear any color but black?”

Gendry’s lips twitched, but Ned huffed a sigh of exasperation and gestured to the infamous walls.

“I’d wager the South couldn’t fucking stand their Dragon Prince looking so much like a Northman,” she added, louder.

Let the bloody walls hear.

Gendry stilled and Ned began to shake his head while making oddly stilted slicing motions with his hand.

Arya scoffed. “Gods know he’s got a heart as cold as the Night King’s.” 

Her smile faded as she finally noticed Edric and Gendry's matching expressions of terror.

Unseen eyes burned at her back and Arya shivered. “He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” 

“For the record…” His voice cut through her like a knife. “My mother was of the North, so I take that as a compliment, Stark.” 

Arya gasped, unable to stop herself from turning and craning her neck to meet his gaze. He was so much closer than she’d been expecting, it was a wonder she’d not heard him coming—again. 

Those cold eyes she’d mocked studied her with an inscrutable look as he continued, “Also, while I prefer black, I’ve recently taken quite a liking to gray.”

Arya’s eyebrow rose and she couldn’t help the well of humor that bubbled up. It was the same urge that pushed her to do stupid things, like take the final step to close the distance between herself and the dragon before them. “Oh? Could have fooled me, Ser.”

His nostrils flared and his lips thinned as he drew in a deep breath. “As to the last of your accusations… I was not exactly banished from court, though my aunt was not keen on my becoming a knight.”

Arya clenched her fists. “So where have you been, if you weren’t banished? And why did you come back?”

Ned gasped, then grunted as Gendry no doubt thumped his boyfriend on the back. 

Ser Jon leaned slightly forward and Arya swayed on her feet, unable to ignore his gravity. It was her nerves that forced out her next brilliant statement. It was her anger, and frustration, over never being able to please him. Her conviction, that she was right, and he was in the wrong, no matter how much she admired his skill.

“You know what I think?” She lifted her chin. 

“Do enlighten me, Initiate Stark,” he growled.

“I think you’re a prejudiced misogynist who couldn’t stand a woman ruling over you, and that’s why you left,” she snapped.

Ser Jon flinched and his brow furrowed with confusion. 

Arya gasped. It was a mistake, for then her senses were overwhelmed by him, and the scents of sea and ash, of Essosi spices and oddly, of the wolfswood in winter. She blinked past the haze clouding her thoughts and hitched a breath as his mouth curled in a grimace to rival her _Stranger._

“Seeing as I gave up my rightful claim to the throne in my aunt’s favor, Lady Stark, I think it safe to assume you are wrong.”

 _I am_ not _a Lady!_

Arya bristled and was about to let _Prince Jon_ have it when he turned his back on her and stalked back the way he’d come. 

_Wait._

“Where is he going?” she muttered. 

She nearly chased after him. The farther he stalked down the hall of the Red Keep, the more Arya’s feet urged her to follow. He wasn’t going to have the last word, damn it! 

“I watched him walk up to us as if he meant to talk to us at first,” Gendry confessed from somewhere behind her.

Arya frowned. “But why?”

“And why forsake his claim to the throne?” Ned echoed. 

“Bloody Targs…” the Bull grumbled.

The Lord of Starfall patted Arya’s shoulder. “Best be ready for whatever revenge he has planned next class, _milady_.”

Arya chewed thoughtfully on her lower lip but didn’t answer—much to her friend’s surprise.

She could get back at Ned later; after she was done watching the way the prince’s shoulders hunched in as he stalked farther away. 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Sleep evaded her that night, for every time she closed her eyes, she saw Prince Jon Targaryen’s confusion at her accusation. 

_Why was he coming to talk to us?_

_Doesn’t matter, does it?_

_I still can’t sleep._

_Great, now I’m arguing with myself,_ Arya thought with a hiss.

Gendry’s snores were not getting any quieter, nor bloody Theon’s for that matter. 

There was nothing for it. 

Much as she knew she’d pay for it the next morning, Arya slipped from her covers, strapped her dagger to her leggings, and snuck out of the barracks on bare toes. 

She winced as the door creaked behind her, but ignored the cold stones with ease. She’d been raised in a castle, after all. And the Red Keep had been modernized much in the same way as Winterfell. 

_Lady Stark_ , he’d called her. 

Well, it was true, wasn’t it? Much as Arya had never felt like, nor acted a modern lady like Sansa, she couldn’t deny her name. And she couldn’t help wondering if in accusing Jon Targaryen of prejudice, she wasn't guilty of the same thing.

Arya kept to the shadows left by dimmed lighting and hoped, if she wandered, her instincts could take over. Anything to quiet the guilt creeping into her conscience. 

_Quiet as a shadow,_ Syrio’s voice echoed through her mind as she left the Blades Tower behind. 

Only a few turns and tests of tapestries before Arya discovered the servant’s pathways. Castles like the Red Keep still used servants, though not nearly on the same scale as centuries past. 

Here, with a single dim torch to guide her feet, Arya’s guard slowly relaxed. 

She’d already explored many of these routes the first week after her arrival. She’d always been able to sneak into the kitchens and Winterfell, or use the old passages to escape Mother’s wrath. 

She’d always felt an outcast at home with her siblings all sharing shades of Tully red hair and blue eyes. Arya looked like their father, and Uncle Benjen. But most of all, Father said she looked like Aunt Lyanna. Lyanna, who had run away from home and broken her parents’ hearts. Lyanna, who died in childbirth. 

_“My mother was of the North,”_ he’d said. 

Arya came upon an annex, where the stairs carved over the hall overhead, and nearly masked a conspicuous wooden door. 

She grinned as she tested the door. Locked. 

“Finally, a challenge,” she muttered as she knelt and pulled out the set Syrio had gifted her in secret. As First Sword of Braavos, Syrio had needed more skills than wielding a blade, and he’d reluctantly taught Arya the day she discovered his secret stash. 

The lock popped open, and a giddy Arya slipped her kit in her jumper pocket. 

The passage beyond the door wasn’t lit like the servant’s route. 

Syrio used to send Arya chasing after cats all over Winterfell, and over time, she’d found she could almost see in the dark if she relied on her other senses.

Arya drew in a deep breath and felt along the walls as she stepped down a winding staircase into the underbelly of the castle. She pushed aside the urge to reach for her small torch, determined to practice walking with shadows. If Jon Targaryen could do it, so could she.

The passage was longer than she’d been expecting, but only piqued her curiosity further, especially after coming upon an even older, heavier door at the bottom of the staircase.

The last thing Arya expected to find was a cavernous room filled with dragon skulls. Ambient light cast from grating high above gave just enough for her to make out their ghastly shapes. Those nearest the door she’d entered were the largest, and judging from the darkened color of the bone, eldest. Her heart thundered in her chest as she ran a careful hand over a tooth as long as her arm. 

“Why in seven hells are these here and not on display?” she wondered aloud.

“Preservation,” echoed a deep voice in the darkness. 

Arya bit back a scream as she turned, dagger pulled, and ready to face the intruder. Forcing a fierce grin, she bit back, “How would you know about that?”

“Trust me, I know.” A husky laugh accompanied the reply. The sound sank beneath her cold skin and into her very marrow, though she could not say why. 

Arya swallowed past the lump in her throat to speak. “Don’t think I’ll trust the words of a ghost, thanks.”

That damned laugh again. This time, the sound made her growl as fiercely as the direwolf she’d left back home.

“Am I funny to you, arsehole?” 

“You are the single greatest source of entertainment I’ve had in years, Princess.” 

Arya snorted. “A smart-arse ghost, then? How about you show your fucking face and we’ll find out if ghosts bleed.”

A pause, another breathless laugh, and then, “I’m not certain that is the best idea.”

“Why not?” she nearly shouted. 

“I’m having far too much fun.” There was too little amusement in his tone, and too much intensity behind that voice she felt she should know. 

Arya lifted her chin and took a cautious step back. She had spent hours standing on one foot, and then one toe at a time. She had walked barefoot in the snow and risked losing limbs in the wolfswood. She was _not_ afraid of the dark, and she was _not_ intimidated. 

“Well, that makes one of us. I’ll be leaving now. You can keep your bloody dragons, arsehole.” When the voice didn’t object, Arya slowly lowered her dagger and retreated the way she’d come. 

“Would you really like to know why they keep the skulls down here?” the voice hurriedly interrupted. 

Arya gaped and shook her head. “Look, whoever you are, clearly I’m intruding in your space. I should be asleep anyway,” she muttered with a shake of her head. 

“Indeed, you should, Princess. You have a long day of classes on the morrow.”

Arya stamped her foot. “I am _not_ a fucking princess! Would you leave off? I’m tired of arguing with a ghost, thank you.”

The shadows shifted and rippled as though by magic before her eyes. Arya shivered as a black-garbed figure appeared on bare feet out of the shadows, a wealth of dark curls hanging over his _very_ familiar face. Eyes so dark a violet as to appear silvery gray. 

“I’m not a ghost.”

Arya nearly lost her grip on her knife as her arms hung loosely to her sides. “Ser?”

Prince Jon Targaryen looked like an entirely different creature in the liminal hours before dawn. As he entered her line of sight, Arya found him to look far less intimidating than he did by daylight. Gone was the hard leather armor and stern expression. His black pants and shirt clung to well-proportioned muscles and his bare forearms were causing her no end of distraction. Covered in tattoos of winter roses and direwolves, it was the last thing she’d ever expected to see on a Targaryen prince. 

_His mother was of the North._

Arya didn’t realize she’d been staring until he spoke.

“See something interesting, Stark?”

She met his gaze, again shocked to find amusement dancing amid those solemn features. She slipped her dagger back in her thigh holster and shook her head. “You don’t hate me, do you?”

Jon stiffened, but the humor didn’t quite leave his tilted mouth as he replied, “And here I was, thinking you hated _me_ , Stark.”

Arya wrung her hands, unable to keep still. “Why would I hate _you_?”

Jon held his hands behind his back. “Well, you did call me a misogynist arsehole.” 

She winced hearing the accusations that had stolen her sleep echoed back at her. “Yeah… sorry about that. I guess I just… you’ve been really hard on me. And I’m _so_ used to arseholes treating me like I’m _less_ just for being a woman, you know? Of course, you don’t know, stupid.” She bit her lip to keep from spewing more from humiliation.

Jon held preternaturally still, then his mouth twitched, and she was rewarded with a genuine grin. His eyes crinkled slightly at the corners, and she swore his eyes _glowed_ in the din. “Lady Stark… I’m harder on you _because_ you are better. I can’t show favoritism when I’ve heard you already face much from the other initiates.”

If she’d been shocked before, she was dumbfounded now. Amazed, and blushing bloody red as his words registered as the best compliment she’d ever received right after Brienne of Tarth’s, _“Well done, Stark.”_

“Stark? I haven’t broken you, have I?” Ser Jon teased.

Her sudden laughter startled them both. She couldn't help it. All this time, she’d thought he hated her. When she’d longed so badly for him to notice her. Wanted someone to simply believe in her as Syrio did. 

Her laughter faded as the prince slowly approached her. He seemed to glide along with the shadows, in a way she’d never seen before. He made no sound when he moved, either, she noted, as her snorts finally quieted. 

She sobered with the realization she could easily reach for him, could touch those beautiful scrolling winter roses and direwolves on his forearms. She longed to pull them from behind his back so she could look again. 

Instead, she looked up into Ser Jon’s sober face and wondered what she could do to keep him smiling. “Thank you, for telling me that. I—I’m sorry if I was a bitch before, about you and your family. You're right. I _don’t_ know, but I should.” 

“It is not your job to defend my honor, Lady Stark.” 

She shook her head as his smile turned serious once more, and his gaze fixated on hers with greater intensity. It was unnerving to have someone so intent upon her when she wasn’t practicing her Needlework.

“I may be a Stark, but I’ve never really fit into the _lady_ mold," she confessed. "And...well, I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think I understand.”

His brow drew together beneath his inky curls. He ran a hand through them now, and Arya smiled as she caught sight of his Northern tattoos. Before he could retreat—or Arya stop herself—she stuck her hand to hang in the space between them. 

She didn’t dare meet his eye as she added, “I get why you would want to go far away. I’ve thought of sailing all the way to Nymerios, before, just to fucking get away from it all.”

He wasn’t going to take her hand. She was being a presumptuous idiot again, acting on instinct instead of sense. She didn’t know she was holding her breath until Jon’s rough palm met hers. His hand was much larger, but they had the same callouses. 

Arya smiled as she pulled his hand forward and glanced briefly into his lost stare. “I don’t know why you decided to come back to King’s Landing, but I’m glad you did, Ser Jon.” 

He squeezed her hand and rubbed his thumb over her skin. “Please call me Jon when we’re alone,” he whispered.

Arya flashed all her teeth and something like triumph roared through her blood as she brought her free hand to gently trace over the winter rose thorns about his wrist. “Only if you call me Arya.”

Jon smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He touched her as though her covered flesh burned him. And though she flashed him little smirks whenever she thought she could get away with it, Ser Jon barely looked at her.

She’d thought it a dream, the morning she woke after hours spent with Ser Jon beneath the Red Keep. It felt like a dream, as Gendry urged her awake with usual, “C’mon, Arry! We’re gonna be late!”

Ned half-dragged her to the spot they always took their morning run. “Please help us out here, Stark. Your lack of expression is scarier than _the Stranger_ ,” he quipped. 

Arya heard her friends discuss her as they ran together along the outer wall of the keep. 

“Two of ya keep her up late, last night, Waters?” someone called from behind.

“Shut up, Hardyng!” Ned tossed back.

Arya barely heard them, and so didn’t notice the exchanged wary glances the other boys shared. 

For the first time since entering Blades Academy, Arya Stark felt herself going through the motions. They fell into their seats at mess, surrounded by squires who’d earned their spurs, and knights taking leave at the keep before shipping off to their next post. 

Ser Jon wasn’t at mess, of course, and so Arya didn’t pay close enough attention. A prickling began at the back of her neck, a nudge from Gendry as Ned hissed from his boyfriend’s other side, “Gods, he’s _here?_ ”

Arya immediately perked up and found him almost instantly across the mess hall. 

Ser Jon wore his dark armor and his sword, his hair tightly tied back from his face. His stern brow and downturned mouth were part of his armor, she now knew. 

“He’s never come to mess before,” Gendry muttered. “Odd, that.”

“Maybe he doesn’t eat normal food,” Theon added from across the table. “Y’know, being a _dragon_ , apparently.”

“Oh, and I suppose by that logic, you only eat fish?” Ned argued.

Arya didn’t jump at the opportunity to snap at the Squid as she normally would have, something the others noticed. How could she waste time arguing with Greyjoy, when _he_ was here. 

She barely breathed as she watched him speak with Headmaster Selmy, then stiffen. 

Another argument erupted from the boys and then, Jon Targaryen turned his head and his dark gaze caught hers across the hall. For one impossible moment, Jon’s stern demeanor softened and a small smile curled at the corner of his expressive mouth. 

Arya ducked her head before anyone else caught her beaming grin. 

_Careful, Stark._

She stabbed at a sausage on her plate and bit at her lower lip. 

It hadn’t been a dream, then.

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Ser Jon had barely looked at Arya during class, and she’d begun to convince herself the smile meant nothing. It _couldn’t_ mean anything, not when he was her instructor, and if all went according to plan, Ser Brienne would become Arya’s master. 

Still, this didn’t stop her wolfsblood from doing something completely stupid and reckless. 

She went to bed early that night, much to Gendry and Ned’s amazement and concern. 

“Suppose we shouldn’t complain, as this gives us extra _alone_ time, Waters.” 

Arya did her best to drown out sounds of their kissing and Ned’s muffled giggles. 

_He won’t be waiting, surely. Why risk it? You should just go to sleep._

Once her boys were tucked in and the other initiates sawing logs, however, Arya slipped from her covers on bare feet. 

_Quick as a snake. Calm as still water. Fear cuts deeper than swords._

He was waiting for her within the gaping maw of the largest dragon skull, his long legs crossed beneath him, and his curls hanging over his eyes. 

The moment she entered the cavernous chamber, Jon looked up and a smile briefly split his face nearly in two. “Arya…”

Arya’s breath hitched and, once more, she was grateful for the dim lighting masking her blush. “Fancy meeting you here, your majesty.”

His smile retreated as she approached, but the light hadn’t gone completely from his eyes. “Would you like to come in, milady?”

Arya shifted on her feet before the great dragon skull as she took in the casual sleep pants and black jumper he wore. For a silly moment, she hated the offending fabric for covering his tattoos again. Jon’s hands were clasped, not so casually before him as she’d first thought. A lingering tension remained in his limbs, and he eyed her almost nervously before she remembered his offer.

_Move your feet, stupid!_

“Why not?” Arya finally replied. She ducked beneath the dragon's fangs and sank to rest on the jawbone across from the prince. 

The urge to crawl into his lap itched beneath her skin, so she clung tightly to her legs instead. “Busy night brooding alone in the dark again?”

Jon huffed a surprised breath. “Is that all you think I do when I’m alone?”

Arya rolled her eyes and leaned back against sharp teeth as though they didn’t dig into her back. “How else would I know? It’s all you do in public.”

“Maybe I have good reasons to brood, Stark.”

Arya rested her cheek on her knees and shook her head with a smirk. “You look so different here,” she said aloud. 

Jon ran a hand through his loose curls. “Oh?”

Arya nodded. “Like you’re a completely different person.”

_Two different lights, two different faces._

By unspoken rule, they hadn’t mentioned her training or knighthood yet, but something in her blood urged her to break the rules tonight. Maybe because she hadn’t thought to have this chance with him again. Or maybe, because she might go mad if she didn’t at least try.

Jon froze as she crawled over his legs until she could squeeze right next to him. “What are you doing?” he whispered.

She bumped shoulders with him. “Your seat looked more comfortable. Besides, it’s bloody freezing down here.”

“I’d have thought you’d be used to the cold,” he teased but did not relax. This simply would not do.

“Arya—”

“Seven hells, Jon! You run like a furnace. Here I’m nipping out when you’re a living space heater.” At this, Arya affected a deeper shiver, then dared to press her cheek against his shoulder, and rested her legs alongside his. 

A strangled sigh passed through Jon’s clenched teeth and his hands flexed until his knuckles turned white. “Gods, you really are trying to kill me.”

“What’s wrong? Afraid of a direwolf?”

“How can I be when my mother was one?”

Arya froze. “What?”

Jon’s shoulder moved beneath her cheek, but she refused to move as he explained, “My mother was Lyanna Stark.”

“What!” Arya jolted upright so quickly she nearly bashed her head on a tooth. “My aunt was your… but that makes us _kin_. Why the fuck didn’t my father… but your tattoos.” 

Arya sucked in a desperate gasp. This was too unreal. 

_And you’ve been lusting after him._

_No, I haven’t!_

_Oh shut up and deal with this. You’re cousins. Get over it._

“Oh my gods,” Arya groaned, her face in her hands.

Jon twisted to face her, then carefully rested a hand at her back. “I don’t know why your father never told you, but for mine, the memory was too painful.” 

She peeked over her fingers to find both dread and pain bleeding through his broken mask. Something in her heart cracked to see this, even though she’d known better. She _did_ know better than to crush on an instructor. It was bad enough when he was only a prince…

“Arya, I didn’t even learn I was half Stark until I was thirteen. My father’s Hand, Jon Connington finally told me, when I asked why Father couldn’t look at me. I—I’ve never fit in with my father’s family. And I never understood why _your_ father never tried to reach out to me. Gods know how often I thought of running away to Winterfell, even after earning my gilded spurs…”

Jon laughed, a rasping, bitter sound that wrenched at a part of Arya she’d deeply buried. It was the feeling she’d had growing up a wolf among so many fish. It was the shared wolfsblood flowing through their veins, always pushing her to do the most reckless things.

He’d been rubbing her back, as though to comfort _her_.

Cousin or not, Arya was done keeping her distance. 

A pained groan passed his mouth as Arya crawled between his knees and wound her arms about his neck. 

Jon leaned into her until his forehead pressed to the crown of her head. His eyes shone with unshed tears. “For so long, I’ve hated both my parents’ families. I’d even resolved to hate you before I saw you…” 

“Father said Lyanna died in childbirth,” Arya ground out. Strange, to feel so much anger towards her father, when Ned had always been her ally. Until she learned he’d stolen her chance to know Jon all this time. He may be her cousin, but he was _hers_ , and they’d had no right to keep him from her.

His hand lightly traced her features with growing wonder. “My father almost started a war when he stole Lyanna Stark away. They caused each other and everyone around them so much pain…it sent them both to an early grave. I think I’ve always hated them for that.”

Arya concentrated on breathing so she didn’t blurt out exactly what she thought about their elders now. As though sensing her mood, Jon’s hands slipped around her waist and drew her fully into his embrace. He lifted his head until she was laid bare before his hungry gaze. 

“For years, I thought I was only good for spreading their hate,” he confessed. “I became a knight so I couldn’t infect anyone else. I never wanted to come back, but then Selmy told me you’d been accepted to Blades…” He laughed again, and some of the bitterness peeled away to brighten his dark smile. “Gods know, I wanted so much to hate you, Arya…”

She blinked back sudden tears at what he didn’t say and tucked her head under his chin so he wouldn’t see. “I don’t care who your parents were, Jon. I’m just glad you found me.” 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Over the course of the second week of Lord Commander Tarth’s absence, Ser Jon pushed the Blades initiates to their limits. It didn’t matter how long their practice over-ran, he worked them through motions they knew by rote, and still others they’d never heard of. 

For demonstrations, Ser Jon wielded his bastard blade, a thing of dark rippling Valyrian steel that made Arya peer longingly at Dark Sister hanging above. How strange knowing it was part of his legacy. Far stranger to see the face of a Northman in a man with the blood of Aegon the Conqueror in his veins. 

Jon may be a dragon, but he had the wolfsblood, this much Arya was certain. No dragon would fight with the same ferocity as he did. He moved like no one she’d ever seen, not in past competitions, nor like any of the other instructors. 

He often taught them by slowing his movements down, switching between styles and classes of weapons with ease. As though he’d been born to hold steel in his hands. 

She wasn’t certain about the rest of her classmates, but Arya couldn’t watch Jon for long without her blood racing. No matter how hard she fought it, or remembered his whispered confessions in the dark, watching him dance made her wolfsblood _sing_.

Worst of all, she’d started to make “mistakes” so he would be forced to call her out, and make her repeat the motions under his careful hands. He touched her as though her covered flesh burned him. And though she flashed him little smirks whenever she thought she could get away with it, Ser Jon barely looked at her. 

Time at the beginning of their fifth week at Blades Royal Academy was split between classes with Ser Jon, Ser Bronn, and occasionally the retired Lord Commander, Ser Gerold Hightower. Rather than spending hours at chores the servants could do, the initiates now studied practical theory and history, along with other courses the retired Lord Commander, and Headmaster Selmy instructed. 

Arya knew it all like the back of her hand. Winterfell had an excellent library, and Ser Mark Ryswell had often come to train her brothers—and Arya, behind Catelyn’s back.

Rather than die of boredom, Arya utilized desk time to focus on more important matters. Like how she could make Jon Targaryen smile when they’d meet later that night.

By unspoken agreement, they came together like this. 

Arya would rush through her lessons and mess, then be first to fall into bed. 

She still hadn’t breathed a word of her secret encounters with the outcast prince, though Gendry eyed her suspiciously when she’d accidentally woken him upon returning to the dormitory the second morning. 

Arya was more careful to practice _quiet-as-a-shadow_ after until not even light-sleeper Egg stirred. 

Jon always appeared from the shadows between what he claimed to have once been Balerion and Vhagar. Most nights found them sitting inside the great maws of Aegon and Visenya’s dragons, while Jon patiently answered Arya’s questions. 

_“Did you grow up in the Red Keep?”_

_“I preferred Dragon Stone,”_ he’d replied, as Arya settled next to his side.

_“Did you know your father?”_

_“He couldn’t bear the sight of me after Mother died. Dany says he was more like a father than an elder brother to her, but I never knew him like this.”_

_“Why did you choose tattoos of direwolves and winter roses, when you hate your mother so much?”_ she’d asked while tracing the swirling lines under his wrist.

_“Why do you always look at Dark Sister when you should be concentrating in class?”_

Arya hadn’t given him an answer. She could no better explain what Jon’s ancestral blade meant to her, any better than she could explain her need to be better, faster, and smarter. 

Jon didn’t often turn questions back on her, not that she wanted to talk about home when she already missed Winterfell too much. 

Still, she couldn’t help the feeling Jon knew much more about everything than he let on. 

_“Jon is an odd name for a Targaryen prince,”_ she dared ask the fourth night they met beneath the keep.

 _“That’s because I wasn’t born to it,”_ he’d simply replied, _“I earned the right to choose my name the day I won my spurs.”_

 _“Why Jon, though?”_ She had dared to press him further. 

Jon had eyed her oddly at this, a quiet intensity only broken by the distant _drip_ from the cavern-like walls. _“It’s the name of the kind of person I want to be.”_

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

On the fifth evening, since Arya began meeting Ser Jon under the Red Keep, she was forced to feign sleep far longer than usual. 

Apparently the Lannister bastards were a thing too— _ew_ —and so she waited for them to finish and go to sleep. 

“Worse than Targs…” she grumbled under her breath.

Finally, the dormitory lights dimmed deeper, and it was safe to escape. 

Arya replaced her dagger and tool kit, adjusted the black jumper she’d stolen from Jon two nights before, and slipped from the room like a ghost. 

The best route was mapped so well in her mind by now, she didn’t need a torch to guide her path. No light made it harder for others to see her, though she rarely came across anyone at this time of night. Not even in the servants crossed through their halls at this hour, and so Arya came to their special place without trouble.

She had barely made it two feet past the door when rough hands snatched her arms and drew her near. 

Arya sighed, relieved as his scent surrounded her. “Gods, Jon, what are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?” She giggled as she leaned against his chest. 

“You’re late,” he growled in her ear. 

Arya smiled as she felt his racing heart beneath her palm. 

_Gods, he’s fit._

Jon’s hands twitched and he suddenly released her as though stung. 

“Oh, shit, did I say that out loud?” she muttered.

Jon cleared his throat and ducked his head. “I was about to come looking for you.”

She couldn’t resist shoving him a little, ready to find any excuse to touch him again. “I did wipe the floor with the Squid today, Jon. I’m not a fucking princess, you know.” 

Jon’s rough exhale equated a laugh, as she’d learned. “The Starks ruled the North far longer than my father’s family.” 

Arya rolled her eyes. “Funny, then, your _family_ just couldn’t leave us alone.”

Jon reached for her hand in the darkness, and slowly traced her many callouses. “Targaryens have always had a weakness for Starks, you know.”

A thrill laced up her spine and she dared take a step closer until his tall frame eclipsed hers. “Are you saying I’m your weakness, _your majesty_?” 

His chest stilled and his grip on her hand tightened as he looked up through his lashes, flashes of silver in shadow. “Arya…”

She swallowed back her nerves and did something she’d wanted to do since the second night they’d spent together. “Your hair’s so soft,” she marveled aloud as she ran a hand through his loose curls.

Jon shuddered and his lips parted as she closed the remaining distance to clasp the back of his neck. “Wait…”

Arya held still, watching him as she would any predator in the wolfswood. Something about the dark prince felt feral to her senses. Something she might have laughed at once upon a time, before Nymeria found her in the forest. But there was some magic left in this world, of that much Arya was certain. And she felt it stir whenever she and Jon were together.

Jon used his free hand to grasp at her lower back, drawing her in even as his words urged her away. “Arya, I am not a good man.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“ _No_ , I’m not. And I can promise you this…” He buried his hand in her hair and ran his nose along the line of her neck. “If you give in to me, I’ll destroy you, Arya. I swear by the old gods and the new, I won’t be able to stop.”

Arya closed her eyes and tightened her grasp at his neck. “Oh, gods, don’t say things like that, Jon.” Her giggle was cut off as he hitched her thigh over his hip so his hard length dragged over her center. 

“I need you to think really hard about this, Arya,” he rasped. “Because if this isn’t what you want, you’ll tell me _now._ ”

Arya opened her eyes and met his heated gaze. “I’ll always want you, Jon.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Arya, I need you to promise me…as long as you’re mine, you’ll never look at another.” He grimaced and added, “please just promise me.”  
> “I want to be yours.” It was enough to breathe the same air, to feel how much he still longed for her. For the first time in her life, Arya felt needed.

Part of her craved something rougher than she should have for her first time. Catelyn Stark’s daughter would have expected something soft and gentle. But Arya never did what her mother wanted, if she could help it. 

After his wicked promise, Arya expected Jon to take her with a bruising kiss. Instead, he released her thigh and carefully stepped back from their embrace. 

For one agonizing moment, Arya watched him watch her. Jon’s gaze raked over her, from bare toes, over tight leggings, and to his jumper covering her torso. 

Jon swallowed heavily and returned to her with hot hands at her hips. His hands fell away again to tightly fist at his sides. 

“Take this off.” 

Her eye’s fluttered closed as a spark of heat settled between her legs. Arya peeled the heavy wool over her head and let it drop to the floor. 

The rustling of clothes and shallow breaths between them was followed by another article of clothing falling to the floor. 

“Open your eyes.”

Arya flinched at his command, and her thoughts blanked upon sight of his bare chest. The tattoos she’d adored on his arms scrolled over his shoulders, taking shape into Northern runes and High Valyrian. She took a cautious step forward and glanced briefly up into Jon’s dark eyes. 

He captured her hand and pressed an open-mouthed kiss over her palm before pressing it to his torso. 

Arya didn’t dare speak as she traced the endless sea of scars his tattoos masked. “Oh gods, Jon…” fell past her tongue before she could bite the words back. Her hand froze on his stomach, scarred skin over muscles like steel. 

Jon groaned as he drew a firm hand along her hip, and then trailed past her ribs to cup one breast. 

Arya’s breath hitched as Jon dragged his thumb over an erect nipple. He stepped into her space until his erection pressed to her stomach. He continued to toy with her breast, while his free hand slid over her thigh and squeezed her toned backside. 

His muscles flexed against her hand as he bent to take the other nipple into his mouth and murmured, “Tell me you want this.” 

Arya grasped at his silky curls and didn’t dare look away. “Gods, yes,” she moaned. 

Jon sucked hard, and Arya cried out before he pulled back to taste her other breast. 

His hand slid down to cup the growing heat between her legs. “Tell me you want this _only_ with me,” he growled. 

Arya nodded as Jon’s lips pulled with each alternating lick and drag of teeth at the invisible string tying every nerve within her body together. 

The air thickened around them, seemingly drawing the shadows nearer. Jon’s eyes seemed to glow, and his hands sparked magic everywhere he touched. His bare hands were rough and pressed over the contours of her body as though to memorize every dip and crevice of her skin. 

Her breath stuttered in her chest as Jon sank to the floor and tipped his head back to gaze up hungrily at her. “Take off the rest of your clothes.”

Arya shook off her nerves and obeyed. She wasn’t prepared for Jon’s reverent hands to glide over each new inch of exposed flesh. He didn’t wait for her step from her final layer before his hands spread her legs. His lips and tongue mapped her quivering muscles until he reached the apex of her thighs.

A high-pitched whine escaped her as his lips sucked at her swollen nub. She couldn’t think beyond the feel of Jon’s mouth, his hair beneath her hands, her heart in her throat. 

Jon inhaled deeply, before dipping his face even further to push his tongue deep into her core. 

“ _Jon_.” She dug her nails into his head and shoulder, urging him closer, then shuddered. 

Jon glanced up at her through his lashes, while his tongue dragged repeatedly over her bundle of nerves. “Give in to me, Arya.” 

She had never imagined anything like this during her frequent flashes of fantasies with the prince. Before, it had always been _her_ tongue mapping out his tattoos, running greedily over every inch of his body. She’d often wondered what his cock would taste like, and she couldn’t shake how wrong this felt, to have a prince on his knees instead. 

She stiffened against him at the thought, then tightened her grip on his hair. “Let me taste you, please.”

His arms hooked more firmly about her legs and he worked his mouth harder over her in reply. 

“Oh—” Arya’s eyes rolled back as shivers of pleasure suddenly shifted into the first ripples of release. “Oh _fuck_!” 

Her inner walls pulled at his tongue as he extended the almost painful ecstasy. She panted on unsteady legs as Jon continued to lap at her center to the point of pain. 

Arya dug her nails into his scalp, then froze at the flash of hunger in his gaze. Her chest heaved as he kissed his way over her pubic bone. She gasped as his teeth framed over her hip in a taunting bite. 

He took his time rising to his feet, again favoring her breasts with careful attention. Jon bit lightly on the junction between her neck and shoulder. 

She ran her hands over his shoulders and back, eager to learn every scar. “I want to see all of you.” 

He shook his head. “Not tonight.”

“What?” Her voice broke as she clutched at his lower back. “But I thought—”

“You thought, what,” Jon growled, as he swirled his tongue over her pulse. “That I’d _fuck_ you here like an animal?” 

“I don’t know.” She pressed her forehead to Jon’s shoulder. “I just thought all men wanted that.”

Jon’s chest heaved as an arm squeezed at her waist, the other about her neck until there was no space left between them. Until he’d molded perfectly around her frame like he was meant to be there. 

Against her ear, where she couldn’t see his expression, his tortured words came a harsh plea. “Tell me no other has touched you like that. _Gods_ , Arya, I swear, if anyone so much as looks at you like that I’ll tear their fucking throats out.” 

His body trembled with his words, and Arya wondered that she wasn’t afraid of him for the first time. “ _No_ one.” She ran her hands through his curls, over his neck, anywhere she could reach. “I wouldn’t… I’ve—” she heaved a breath for courage. “I’ve never been with anyone before you.”

_Great! Now he’s going to treat you with kid virgin gloves. Nice going, Stark._

Jon’s embrace tightened imperceptibly, yet when he pulled back, beard still faintly glistening from her release, and he was _smiling_. Not just smiling, he was practically beaming, uninhibited by all that weighed upon him, and he was beautiful.

Jon ran a soothing hand over her backside, reaching until his fingers brushed against her seeping wetness. His other hand tangled into her messy braid as he released a breath upon her lips. “Arya, I need you to promise me…as long as you’re mine, you’ll never look at another. I don’t think I could bear the thought of you...” He grimaced and added, “please just promise me.”

“I want to be yours.” It was enough to breathe the same air, to feel how much he still longed for her. For the first time in her life, Arya felt _needed._

Jon released a shaky sigh, but the tension, at last, fled his limbs. And as he traced her features with careful caresses and kisses to her neck, Arya never wanted this feeling to end. 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Once, she’d envisaged him as two men, wearing two different faces by day and by night. She hadn’t understood before how a person could live one way in front of others, and another in secret. She hadn’t known what it was to become two separate Arya’s until now. 

_“You know,”_ she’d once teased as Jon explored her body, _“I should be suffering in my studies with the lack of sleep I’ve had lately.”_

Jon’s mouth had quirked up at the corner as his fingers dipped between her legs. _“Are you?”_

 _“You’re one of my instructors, Jon, you should know.”_

By day, she threw herself even harder into her knightly studies. 

Ser Jon had begun to take turns sparring with each initiate one-on-one. The others would stand and watch, then critique one another’s mistakes and ways they could improve. 

Arya craved her turns on the gym floor, for any excuse to be near him, and to feel the heat of his gaze burning through her with promises of _later_. 

When they sparred, Arya relied on her speed and wits to dance around him. 

Only problem was, Jon was just as quick as she was, and he always seemed to anticipate every attack. 

The memory of an endless sea of scars hidden beneath his long-sleeved black shirts came to mind, whenever she watched him face the others. 

He seemed to take special relish with beating Greyjoy and Hardyng, though Arya alone understood his moods well enough to sense this. 

He was careful—but not _too_ careful with Ned and Gendry—and this filled her heart to bursting until she could barely keep steady her pounding heart. 

He consumed her to the point she found herself drifting between daylight hours.

By this point, her friends seemed to accept this. 

Or, as was most likely the case, Ned and Gendry were too caught up in one another to notice. 

She blinked and found herself in the dormitory between classes again. What had they been doing? 

Arya rolled her eyes as she heard her friends gossiping about the impending return of the Lord Commander.

“Everyone knows she’s been on a secret mission overseas,” Ned whispered from Gendry’s side when he thought no one was listening beyond their corner of the room. 

“It’s none of our business, love,” Gendry insisted, though he frowned as he looked over to Arya. 

She ignored his look as she finished slipping on a pair of fresh leggings. They'd come back from mess and needed to finish readying for afternoon classes with Selmy. 

“Oh, sure, you’re just starting to enjoy his majesty’s daily torture sessions. Well, I for one, am ready to have a real master again, thank you.”

With Ned’s words, a switch flipped and Arya was on her feet, looming over him with trembling fists. “Ser Jon is the best bloody bladesmaster you’ve ever seen and you _know it_.”

“Being an amazing bladesmaster doesn’t mean he’s a great _master_ ,” Ned retorted. “Unless you get off on practicing Essossi forms we’re _never_ going to use this side of the Narrow Sea.” 

“You don’t know that! You don’t know what we’ll fucking need. He’s teaching us how to _survive_ , and if you weren’t such a spoiled little lordling, you’d be fucking grateful he’s wasting his time teaching us.” 

Ned gaped stupidly up at her.

“Back off, Arry!” The Bull rose from Ned's side to loom over her. 

Arya bit her tongue to keep from saying anything else. Her vision was blurring. Why was she crying? 

Gendry’s anger cooled at the first sign of her tears. He ran a hand over his face and glanced between her and his boyfriend with a sigh. “Ned didn’t mean anything by it, okay? I think we’re all just a little on edge, what with the first test coming next month.”

Ned chuffed a nervous laugh as he pulled on his boots. “Gods, Stark, you’d have thought I just insulted your brother, the way you defended him. Last we heard, you were comparing him to the Night King.”

Arya flinched at the reminder and scrubbed her cheeks before turning her back on her friends. Her hands were still shaking. “I need to go. I—”

Gendry placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. “You okay, Arry?”

She shook off his touch with a grunt. “Fine, I just need five minutes away from Starfall and I’ll be fine.”

Ned looked crestfallen as she snatched up her books and darted past them. 

Arya ignored the stab of pain in knowing she’d just hurt one of her only friends.

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

It wasn't until much, much later, that Arya was able to push aside the confusing tumble of emotions. Everything seemed easier in the shadows, in the refuge of Jon's arms.

She pushed aside all thoughts as Jon's tongue passed over her navel and encircled her breast.

He kept the rhythm at her center with his fingers that he’d learned drew her orgasms out longest. The first time they’d done this, Jon had only used one finger. Now he added another, _three_ , until Arya thought she’d die when he angled his hand just so.

“Jon!” She clutched at his head and battled her sudden need to taste him in turn. He still wouldn’t allow her to explore him, and it was slowly driving Arya mad. 

_Be grateful he even wants to do any of this instead of a quick fuck._

_What if we_ want _a quick fuck?_

_Shut up and enjoy this, stupid!_

Arya was much noisier than she’d ever thought she’d be. Determined as she always was to bite her lip and keep silent, Jon had a way of unraveling her control. In fact, he seemed to get off on the challenge, and in this new way, she came to crave his instruction. 

“Lay on your stomach,” he ordered. 

After their first night being _together_ , Jon started to bring a thick black comforter to lay over the stone floor. 

Arya shivered at the command. 

The cold stone pressed against her breasts and along her thighs, and Arya shivered with anticipation. 

She listened to the sound of his clothes being taken off. First his shirt, then his pants. Her eyes widened as he hesitated. Then came the final piece of clothing. 

Arya opened her mouth to tease him when he began to press heated kisses over the contracting muscles of her ass. “Gods, Jon,” she giggled. “For a moment, there, I thought you would finally... _oh_.”

His kisses trailed up her tailbone and mapped the freckles dotting her back, before settling over the large tattoo inked down her spine. “When did you get this?” Jon murmured as his arms boxed her in, and his chest heated her side. 

Arya bit her lip and feigned nonchalance. “It’s stupid…” 

Jon bit at her shoulder blade. “No, it’s not stupid,” he growled. “Tell me why you got it.” He traced over the near-perfect image of _Dark Sister_ ingrained into Arya’s back.

“I just—” Her eyes rolled to the back of her head as his bare length nestled between her asscheeks. 

“Just what?” Jon teased as his length brushed along her soaking entrance and brushed her clit.

Arya’s fists bunched at the comforter beneath them as she moaned. “I wanted to be a warrior, just like Visenya.” 

Jon smiled against her neck as he unhurriedly rocked against her. “I always liked Visenya best.”

Arya turned her head so she could meet his eye. “Will you please stop teasing me, Jon? I don’t know how much more I can— _oh.”_

The tip of his cock suddenly pressed at her entrance. “Are you sure, Arya? I won’t be able to stop once I have you, and I _need_ you to be sure.”

Arya nodded. “Please, Jon!” she begged, then held her breath. He’d been preparing her these last few nights, but to actually feel him between her thighs, pushing against her, Arya couldn’t imagine how he’d fit. She knew it would hurt, and the price for claiming Jon was the kind of pain she welcomed. 

She opened her eyes as Jon pressed a tender kiss to her jaw. 

“You are mine, Arya Stark,” he rasped as he braced her to rest on her elbows, then braced his hands on either side of her head. 

She caught his eye and nodded. “Yours.”

Jon’s gaze burned into hers, and then his eyebrows rose and a hoarse cry passed his lips as he slowly pushed as deeply as he could. 

Arya dug her nails into her palms and blinked back tears at the sudden rush and burn. To feel him within her for the first time, to know he belonged to _her_ in a way no one else could. 

_They never will,_ a dark voice flashed within her conscience. 

“You’re mine, Jon,” she hissed. 

He gasped and seemed to swell within her as he drove even deeper. 

Arya cried out as he also pushed past her brief discomfort. She was slick from her earlier release, and as she arched her back to meet Jon’s thrusts, they soon found a rhythm that struck a growing fire within her. 

“Jon?” She opened her eyes as he pulled out and shifted her in his arms so they lay side by side. 

“I need to see you,” came his husky whisper. He pulled her thigh to hook over his hip, and then guided her hip to embrace his length. 

Arya smiled as Jon pulled her fully into his arms. She loved this angle even better, because she could watch every flutter of his eyelashes, and could feel the uneven race of his heart against her hand.

“Touch yourself,” he said with a groan. 

Arya bit her lip, then reached between their bodies as best she could to find her clit. They cried out together as Jon began to piston his hips until she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began. 

“Mine,” they growled together as the first waves of their orgasm washed through them. 

Jon moaned as Arya suddenly rolled him onto his back and rode him, her hands clawing at his chest, his heart practically within her hands. 

_Love…_ came her fleeting thought. 

Arya came again with a white-hot force, colder than ice, hotter than flame. Jon caught her and held her close to his chest as they slowly came back down. 

She caught her breath while gently tracing the runes tattooed over his heart. 

Jon clung to her tightly and seemed in no hurry to let her go. 

This, too, differed from anything else she’d seen or expected from a relationship. 

_Is that what we are?_

Arya’s heart thumped harder as she tried to find the willpower _not_ to ask that very question. She knew better than to question the third truly wonderful thing in her life after Nymeria and Blades Academy. Though, Jon was quickly climbing to the number one best thing at this rate. She giggled and Jon tipped her chin until she met his questioning gaze. 

“Didn’t expect that reaction to making love,” he said with a smile.

Arya rolled her eyes but her heart stuttered over what his words implied. “It’s silly.”

“I told you,” he said with an arched brow and firm grip at her neck. “Nothing you ever think or say is silly. I want to know everything.”

Arya sighed, and Jon released his grip as she shifted over him. The movement reminded her he was very much still hard and cradled between her thighs. And the soreness she felt deep within only reminded her of what they’d just done...and could do again. She smiled. “No condom?”

Jon’s gaze darkened and his hold at her backside tightened. “First of all, you already have an implant.” 

“How in seven hells did you know that?” 

“I read your file,” he said with a slight shift of his hips. 

_Gods, he’s not human._

Arya’s lips parted as she couldn’t help but meet his light thrusts. 

“Secondly,” he said, voice deepening, “I never want anything between us ever again, not if we can help it.”

She laughed. “Gods, you really are mad, aren’t you?”

Something flickered in his dark gray eyes, and then his motions slowed. 

Arya gasped as Jon rose from the floor, the muscles in his abdomen rippling as she now sat in his lap. 

"Would you want me, if I went mad like my grandfather?" he whispered in her ear.

Arya pressed a hiss to his temple and replied, "I'll always want you, Jon."

"I'll never want anyone the way I want you, Arya."

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

She woke the next morning with only an hour of true sleep, and a waning smile on her face as dreams of Jon were replaced with Gendry's urgent warning. 

"C’mon, Arry, we’re already dressed!” 

Arya rushed through the motions of getting ready with a curse. “Oh gods, he’s gonna kill me if I’m late.” Her lips quirked up at the thought of what punishments he’d devise for later. 

She winced as walking proved a bit challenging after having him inside her twice more last night. 

_And gods, do I wanna do that again_.

“Hey there, Stark, would you please not smile so early in the morning? It’s a bit unsettling,” Ned quipped. 

Arya lifted her head to find her friend—the friend she’d needlessly mouthed off—affecting a smile. “Ned… I’m sorry for what I said to you.”

Ned’s lavender eyes widened a moment before his smile flashed bigger and more genuine. “Oh, that?” He scoffed and clapped a hand on her shoulder. “You think I haven’t heard worse from my family, Stark?”

Arya leaned in and jabbed him in the stomach before she did something ridiculous like hug his silly neck. “So they already know you’re a prat?”

Gendry groaned though he was clearly enjoying their banter. “Gods, would you two give it a rest? We still have to _run_.”

“You three love-birds done twittering at each other yet?” Theon crowed from the dormitory entrance.

“Shut up, Greyjoy!” They all called as they trailed the rest of the initiates. 

Training had always helped Arya to focus and push out the less pleasant parts of her life. 

Yet for the first time in over a week she walked, arms linked with her boys, to the gym with lighter steps and a true smile. 

She wondered if Jon would ask her about this later, for he always seemed to _know_ her thoughts before she uttered them. 

"Ready for another morning of pain, Stark?" Ned teased.

"I just hope you're ready, Starfall, for when I knock you on your cute arse." 

Gendry snorted and barely restrained a smile as the three unlinked arms and found their usual places. 

Jon never arrived at exactly the same time, which kept the initiates on edge. Arya had come to love the waiting, and the moment she'd sense his gaze on her from his hiding place. She wasn't a master of shadow-walking like Jon, yet. But she could feel him in a way she did no one else. 

"Good morning, initiates," rang out a voice like steel velvet. 

Arya's heart fell as Ser Brienne crossed the gym floor to stand before them with a weary smile. 

"No doubt, you all have questions about my absence. I regret I was unable to train you these past weeks, but I have heard great things from your interim bladesmaster. He has deemed some of you so worthy, in fact, that I thought it time to announce the first test."

The other initiates stood straighter, but Arya couldn't breathe past the growing emptiness in her chest. 

"In one week's time, the Prince Consort has agreed to host a tournament. There many of our squires and knights will test their skills and pledge their honor." Ser Brienne walked among the scattered initiates and settled a fond look Arya's way. 

Her palms stung from where she was clenching them too tightly. Her nails cut into the skin, but Arya couldn't force her trembling hands to uncurl. 

"At the tournament, your class will have the chance to earn merits and, to a lucky winner, win your first spurs."

Some initiates gasped about the room. This was an unprecedented move for the academy. Arya knew this in her mind, as she understood this was the opportunity she'd been waiting for all her life. 

So why couldn't she shake the panic clawing at her throat? And why did it feel as though she would never see Jon again? 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arya wasn’t supposed to be the girl with a tragic romance...

Arya chewed on her thumbnail while pacing outside the door to Headmaster Selmy’s office after her last afternoon class. 

She’d come directly, of course, after a quick sweep of the Keep showed no sign of Ser Jon. None of the servants Arya had befriended over the weeks knew where he was. And she’d been too afraid to go to the dragon crypt. 

_Since when were you afraid of anything, Stark?_

The door opened, and Headmaster Selmy awaited with an arched eyebrow and smile buried within his short, snow-white beard. “Initiate Stark? I could hear you pacing a trench outside my office. Won’t you come in?”

Arya straightened. “That won’t be necessary, Ser, thank you.” She swallowed her pride and added, “I was wondering if, now that Ser Jon has given up our classes to the Lord Commander... Well, I respect him quite a lot, Ser, and I’d wondered if he was coming to watch us in the tourney?”

She held her breath. Nothing to do but hope this gamble would pay off in a way that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. 

Headmaster Selmy’s gaze held hers for some time and then softened. “Has anyone ever told you how much you look like your Aunt Lyanna?”

Arya clenched her hands tightly behind her back. “No, Ser.”

The headmaster leaned against his open doorway and his gaze seemed to settle far past her. “She wanted to be a knight, too, as I recall...it’s how she first met Prince Rhaegar.”

“Ser?” Arya cut in. She didn’t want to hear about the parents who had put their selfish needs above everyone else, including their son. 

Selmy inclined his head to her. “I guarded the prince for most of his life. Rhaegar would have done anything for Lyanna, you see…” 

Arya frowned, uncertain how this had anything to do with her question. 

Selmy’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he backed into his office, and held his hand to the door. “I cannot make promises for their son, but I do believe Ser Jon is more like his father than he realizes. Good day, Initiate Stark.”

Arya shoved her hands in her pockets and dragged her weary feet back to the dormitory. 

Classes had been brutal today, since the announcement of the upcoming tourney. All their instructors seemed determined to prepare their students by any means, including fighting for hours on end without sitting down. 

Ironically, if Ser Jon had not been pushing them so much harder during their first class, Arya doubted they would have lasted a day of this. Let alone the week to come. 

Ned was already asleep once she’d finally climbed the third-floor dormitory. The Reach boys were chatting with Hardyng, while the Lannisters and Greyjoy were missing. Egg sat cleaning his boots, but cast a quick glance up to meet Arya’s eye as she passed. His sad smile made her feel better and also unnerved, as though Egg already knew why she’d been off today. 

Gendry hopped off his bed the moment Arya slipped to their corner of the room. “There you are. You had me worried sick, Arry. You shouldn’t be wandering the keep alone with the likes of Greyjoy about.”

Arya rolled her eyes as she sank to her mattress and pulled off her boots. “Gods, Bull, you’re worse than my mother.”

Gendry ducked to sit at her side, eyeing her suspiciously all the while. “Maybe I have good reason to worry.”

Her elbow met his ribs, but might as well have hit a wall instead. “Gods, you really are built of bricks, aren’t you?”

“I know you sneak out every night, Arry. I _know_ you’re seeing someone.” 

Arya’s grip tightened on the jumper she’d just pulled from her chest. “How the hell could you know that?” she whispered.

Gendry shrugged and ran a hand over his mop of black hair. “My mum’s in love with a new bloke at least once a year. You learn to read the signs…” Here his embarrassment shifted and his blue eyes ignited with a fierce fire. “All I know is Ser Jon wasn’t here today, and all of a sudden you’ve been acting like someone stole your Needle.”

Arya opened her mouth, no clever words came. Only panic, and anger. She balled her hand into a tight fist and threw a hard punch at her friend’s burly shoulder. 

“Ow! What was that for?” Gendry groaned as he rubbed his abused arm. 

Ned rolled over in his bed, then continued snoring away.

Arya and Gendry released a collective sigh before she lowered her voice even further. “You’re an idiot. I’m not _in love_ with Jon Targaryen. He hates me, remembers? Now, come on. If we don’t get sleep now you won’t be able to wake me up in the morning, and then we’ll _both_ suffer.”

“Fine, forget I said anything,” Gendry mumbled as he shuffled over to his bed. 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

The path to the dragon crypt was nearly impossible to navigate, as though everyone was making up for lost time with the Lord Commander’s return.

She nearly turned back three different times. Only her desperate need to _know_ pushed her forward. 

The one time she ran into a servant, it was thankfully someone she’d met in the stables before. They had nodded and grinned when Arya pressed a finger to her lips. And so Arya found her way below the Red Keep once more. 

Jon was not waiting for her in the shadows. 

_Gone..._

She caught herself on the edge of Vhagar’s great skull and closed her eyes as she concentrated on breathing in and out...in and out again. 

All his promises, his _demands_ that she be his and his alone. What did it all mean now? 

_What is any of it worth without him?_

Arya had always scoffed at the maidens in the old songs, the tragic romances Sansa had loved. She’d preferred the warrior queens like Visenya and Nymeria. Arya wasn’t supposed to be the girl with a tragic romance. She hadn’t expected to find _any_ romance when she came to Blades Academy. She’d gotten the implant on her sister’s insistence alone.

 _“I don’t care what you say, Arya, you’re coming with me. You never know when you’ll need it,”_ her sister had said.

A quiet sob echoed in the endless cavern and Arya covered her mouth as she turned to check the shadows again. 

This was ridiculous. Jon was a knight, a prince—her _cousin._ Of all people she could have started an affair with, he was the least likely, and the most likely to end in tragedy. 

A harsh laugh escaped her as she realized she’d become her own worst enemy, the butt of her own damned joke. 

Arya walked over to Balerion’s skull and frowned as something blue within caught her eye. Her heart leaped into her throat as she rushed to crawl inside and picked up the single winter rose waiting for her. 

She smiled and shook her head as she gripped the stem too tightly. The thorns pricked at her palm, but she didn’t care. She sat within the maw of Balerion the Dread, pressed the rose to her chest, and rested her eyes on her knees. 

Arya Stark had only ever wanted one thing and was closer to achieving it than she’d ever been. But it meant nothing. Her childhood hero’s praise today meant _nothing_ because Jon had not been there to see it. She shouldn’t miss him, or want him pushing her as no one had before.

“I don’t miss him,” she hissed as tears wetted her pant legs. She curled up on her side within the dragon’s skull and fell asleep with rose petals brushing her lips.

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

He came to her in a dream, smelling of leather and polish and the sea. As though he’d just stepped off from the docks. He pulled her into his arms and pressed kisses over her face until she blinked aware. “I tried to stay away, Arya. I swear it, I tried for you. But I can’t.”

Arya choked on a gasp as her fingers tangled in his hair. “Oh gods, Jon,” she moaned as he pressed his forehead to hers. “ _Jon_ ,” she murmured through the onset of fresh tears. 

Arya crawled into his lap, knocking him back against Balerion’s jawbone. “Don’t leave me, Jon, please never leave.” 

She hated how small and timid her voice sounded, though she knew he didn’t care. He’d told her time and again how much she mattered. He’d shown her in a thousand little ways how much he cared. 

Jon smiled as he tightened his grasp about her waist and neck. “I already told you, remember? I will never stop needing you.”

Arya shuddered and cupped his face between her hands so she could see the weariness on his face. “When I couldn’t find you today, I thought…” She bit her lip, unwilling to confess her doubts. Jon’s brow creased and she knew her words pained him.

He closed his eyes and rested his forehead to hers. “Selmy came to my chamber early this morning with Ser Brienne. After I gave my report, they claimed my aunt required me in the throne room.” His gaze darkened. “I was _told_ to return to my post on Dragonstone before the tourney. Apparently, she doesn’t want my presence in case I insult some of the families who have been invited.”

Arya winced and knew the queen counted her family in that number. “Jon, I can’t do this without you.”

His lips brushed against hers and she shivered. “And I can’t live without you.”

He stole her breath with firm, deepening kisses. 

Arya moaned as his tongue stroked along the roof of her mouth, curling possessively about hers. She wrapped her legs more firmly about his waist and arched against the growing bulge in his pants. “I missed you.”

“I love you,” he confessed between kisses. 

Her heart ached and pulsed with his heated declaration. “ _Jon_ ,” she sighed as he reached between them and unfastened his belt. 

Her breath quickened with growing need as she sat back on her knees and worked her leggings down. Her thighs quivered and she was still sore from the night before. They had no feather comforter beneath them this time, only the bones and stone beneath the Red Keep. 

Just his hands in a harsh grip at her hips, and then running over her backside. They held one another’s gaze as Arya grasped his cock and positioned him at her entrance. They groaned together as she sank slowly until he was fully sheathed within her. His fingers sought her sex as his other hand urged her hips to rock over his. 

Arya held onto his shoulders and squeezed her thighs as she pulled out, then arched back over him again and again. 

Jon watched her as though memorizing every arch of her eyebrows, every pull of her teeth at her lips. His dark gray eyes drank her in with the same commitment he’d shown to learning the contours of her body these past nights. 

Arya leaned forward to taste his lips. They'd never kissed before tonight. Jon always seemed to need control in their lovemaking as much he needed to worship her. Now he reached for her with renewed desperation, an increasing need to drink from her mouth again and again. 

“Arya,” he rasped as she snapped her hips forward, increasing their pace.

He chanted her name between kisses while undoing her braid. 

She pulled his curls free and tugged to arch his neck, to learn the inner cavern of his mouth. 

Jon pushed against her in shallow, lazy thrusts. His thumb never ceased circling at her clit, drawing out her pleasure. “Come for me, love,” he spoke low. 

“Not yet,” she said as she traced her tongue around his ear. “I want to make you feel good.”

Jon pulled his hand free to suddenly wrap about her waist. He surged forward onto his knees, keeping Arya enfolded in his embrace. “ _You_ make me feel good,” he growled against her lips.

Arya gasped as she gave in to their new pounding rhythm. Each time their hips met, sparks danced beneath her skin, within her core. She squeezed her knees against his sides and the old hunger, the need she’d always slightly feared as a girl, grew with Jon’s thrusts.

Jon swallowed her moans, and teased her tongue, before biting down her lower lip. 

She came with a burst of fire and heat, and Jon’s name echoing in the darkness around them. 

He managed another thrust, two, three, before encasing her in a grip so tight she couldn’t breathe. His teeth dug into her shoulder as he muffled his deep groans, spilling into her with a rush of heat.

Her shoulder ached where he’d bit down, but Arya knew she’d trace over the mark later and remember this moment. She knew she’d want him again, even sore and aching from the day and all that was to come. She wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her eyes. “I never want to leave you.”

Jon stiffened beneath her, then slowly pushed her back to meet his uncertain gaze. “And you won’t have to, Arya.” 

She hesitated, the tourney and all the warnings others had instilled today rushing back to the forefront of her thoughts. Thus far they'd avoided talking about knighthood and training in the dragon crypt. But Jon’s words sparked thoughts she’d been determined to ignore for weeks. Ever since she’d come to need him more than her gilded spurs. 

_You’ve become your own tragedy,_ that small dark voice taunted. 

“Jon,” she began with a shake of her head. 

He flinched and then his hand tightened at her hip. He was still hard within her, but quickly softening as he bit out, “Tell me. What happened today?”

“Ser Brienne told us about the tourney, and how you said some of us were ready to earn our spurs…” 

Jon’s jaw clenched and his hand passed beneath her stolen jumper to settle over her breast. “I did. It’s why I pushed all of you so hard. Arya, you should know everything isn’t all it seems in the kingdoms. Ser Brienne being gone for so long should be proof enough.”

Arya’s breath hitched as he brought her nipple to its peak, then stilled his hand as she replied. “Jon, I know. We’ve heard rumors. That’s why they moved up the first test, isn’t it?”

Jon pulled his hand from the jumper and threaded his long fingers through her messy hair. “Knighthood isn’t everything you’ve been told, Arya. It is not a glamorous life, and if you’re chosen in this tourney, your life would no longer be your own,” he ground out. 

She closed her eyes as he spoke her greatest fears. “If I win… I just want you to know I have no regrets, Jon.” 

He drew her forward with a sigh. “Why do I get the feeling you’re trying to tell me goodbye,” he murmured between kisses.

Arya swallowed past the lump in her throat. “I don’t want to. But Jon, this is all I ever wanted, for as long as I could remember.”

The more she spoke, the more the old resolve firmed in her heart, no matter how her soul protested. She forced herself to look him in the eye as she said, “I’m going to enter the tourney, Jon, and I’m going to win.”

For the first time since they’d become lovers, the cold mask Arya hated fell over Jon like an icy skin. “Of course you are…” 

She nearly protested as he lifted her up and began to set their clothes to rights. She didn’t have the heart to speak as he pulled her leggings over her hips, trapping the release from dripping down her thighs. 

She watched him, lost as Jon drew his pants up, and adjusted his belt. He sank back on his heels and buried his hands in his hair, then froze. A strangled sound passed from his throat, and she couldn’t remain numb to him.

Arya crawled over to him. “Jon, please tell me I won’t lose you after this. Promise me you won’t leave, just because I’ll have a new master.”

Jon squeezed his eyes shut, as some unspoken emotion rippled through the muscles beneath her hand. 

For one awful moment, Arya thought he would keep silent, that he would get up and walk away. 

Instead, he took her hand and pressed her palm to his mouth. He looked up at her through his lashes and breathed his promise against her skin. “I will never leave you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooookay, so I lied. Well, not quite. I honestly thought I could tell this story in five chapters (ha...) but this has now officially expanded to 6! I make no promises, though I'd like to say we'll finally get to the tourney and discover Arya and Jon's fate. A thousand thanks and virtual hugs to everyone who's read along and left comments and kudos so far! I had no idea how much I'd end up writing for Jonrya June, but I've adored writing these characters. And you're all simply lovely :) Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No matter if she won today or if she remained, they would find a way. She had to believe that now. She had to look past herself and what she thought she wanted. Even if none of it mattered without him.

The roar of the crowds in the stands shook the floor and rippled over the initiates’ tent. 

Arya sat with her legs folded and the Braavosi blade she loved most cradled over her lap. “Strong as a bear. Fierce as a wolverine,” she whispered. “Fear cuts deeper than swords.” The words of her first bladesmaster rolled over in her head, a steady mantra to pull her back from the roar of the crowds and prepare for the battles to come.

_Fear cuts deeper than swords._

She’d been given her first blade when she was nine, but Arya had been practicing for as long as she could remember. Every step she’d taken all her life had led to this moment. 

“It is one thing to train in the yard with a blunted sword in hand,” the familiar voice interrupted Arya’s meditation, “and another to battle your friends. Yet to be a knight, you must forsake all old bonds.” 

At her mentor’s words, Arya thought of Ned and Gendry’s smiling faces, of the way they’d hugged her moments before they’d been called to prepare. Now her best friends sat silent sentinels on Arya’s either side.

Ser Brienne’s tread was soft as she stepped around the initiates. “As a knight of the realm, you may be asked to give up your honor, or your dreams. If need be, you may even be called to give up your lives.”

 _“Trust no one.”_ Jon’s smile had been strained as he’d wished her luck the night before. 

Arya opened her eyes just as Ser Brienne walked past a starry-eyed Podrick Payne. Payne had been kinder than the other boys. Arya truly hoped she wouldn’t need to fight him today. Theon was stupidly grinning from his place near the entrance to their tent. Anticipation gleamed in the Lannisters’ green eyes. Hardyng sat lazily back with his greatsword stuck in the mud— _idiot_ —yet the Reach boys in their flowery armor seemed almost too eager for blood. 

Arya squeezed her Needle, focused on her breathing, and followed Ser Brienne with her eyes.

“We have asked much of you,” the Lord Commander said, “and much still will be required, should you succeed.”

Gendry’s big paw covered Arya’s hand just before her steel cut through her glove. She gasped and glanced at her friend from the corner of her eye. He offered her a brief, lopsided smile. 

“Okay, Arry?” Ned whispered from her other side. 

Arya nodded and relaxed her stance as Ser Brienne appeared before her. 

The three friends froze as the Lord Commander smiled and said, “I want you all to know how proud I am, no matter today’s outcome. What’s more, I hope you are proud of yourselves.” 

Arya blinked back tears as she once again found herself lost in a sea of blue that could belong to her future. Since she was a little girl, it had been all she’d ever wanted—to be squired to Ser Brienne of Tarth.

The Lord Commander turned her back on them to announce, “You are the finest class of initiates I’ve been honored to instruct. Go out there now and let’s show the realm, and your queen, what you’re made of!” 

The others erupted in a cheer as they sprung to their feet. 

Arya followed on autopilot, allowing Ned and Gendry to lead her behind them. 

Ser Brienne walked to the head of the tent and parted the flap to the arena beyond. 

“Fear cuts deeper than swords,” Arya muttered under her breath. 

“Gods, can’t believe I have to do this in front of Uncle Arthur,” Ned whined from behind her. 

“You’ll be fine, love,” Gendry insisted while squeezing Arya’s shoulder. 

“Ready to _lose_ , Stark?” Theon taunted just ahead. 

“Shut up, Greyjoy,” Podrick Payne said, much to everyone’s—especially Theon’s—surprise.

Ser Brienne might have been smiling as she glanced over her shoulder. “Follow me in an orderly fashion. We must first present ourselves. Remember, you must wait for the queen’s signal to begin. Your goal is to draw first blood, _nothing_ more. May the smartest initiate win.”

With that, they were walking into the afternoon light of the arena. 

Gendry’s hand left her shoulder with a final, tight squeeze, and then it was everything Arya could do to keep her head up and her feet moving.

“The man who fears losing has already lost. Fear cuts deeper than swords,” Arya whispered as the speakers bellowed out the final event of the day. 

Half of King’s Landing seemed to have come out for Prince Arthur’s impromptu tourney. Events like these only happened once or twice a year. Knights and squires from around the realm used these tests to improve rank and skills and to compete for better positions. Although jousting had fallen out of fashion, some knights still participated in a tamer version. But all participants used real steel, to honor of tradition.

Arya tried not to notice the muddy bloodstains as they walked past on their way to the Queen’s pavilion. 

The initiates were not always called to fight one another, from what Arya had gleaned from the servants about the Red Keep. This year, because Ser Brienne claimed them so evenly matched, they would fight a melee together. Just as they had in the beginning. 

The arena had changed little since the time after the First Conquest, only improved by speakers, upgraded equipment, and better seating among the crowd. The initiates wore their issued armor, suited to their styles of combat. Today, they’d been allowed to use one weapon from the gym, and an optional additional weapon from home.

Arya clutched her new Needle in one hand, and a Valyrian steel dagger Jon had gifted her the night before. 

_“I need you to carry this tomorrow. It will keep you safe,”_ he’d insisted. 

Thought of Jon sent her gaze sweeping over the stands. She knew he wouldn’t be anywhere obvious, not when he was supposed to still be sailing to Dragonstone. 

Arya bit her lip as she lined behind Ser Brienne alongside the other initiates. Only then did she look to the royal pavilion. 

Ser Arthur Dayne bore the same platinum hair and crooked smile as his nephew. He loomed large beside the silver-haired Dragon Queen. Daenerys Stormborn was just as beautiful as she appeared on the telly and the history books. Having begun her reign at sixteen, she was the youngest queen to reign over Westeros, and both feared and beloved by her people. 

Yet she was not smiling like her husband, the prince consort. Her lips barely curled in a semblance of a smile, but her gaze was cold as ice as the queen looked over the initiates assembled, and honed in Arya’s direction. 

A creeping prickling sensation swept over Arya’s skin, and she tightened her grip on her blades as the crowd's ruckus faded to a dim hush.

“Who comes before Her Majesty, Queen Daenerys Stormborn, Second of her Name?” Prince Arthur called out. 

“Initiates of the Royal Blades Academy,” Ser Brienne answered, “ready to test their mettle, and prove their honor and loyalty to Queen Daenarys and her realm.”

Arya frowned as she felt Egg shift at her left side. She hadn’t even noticed the silent, blue-haired boy until now. But as she glanced from him to the queen, she found their monarch’s gaze focused not on her, but Egg. 

“Fight with honor,” Prince Arthur intoned.

“As my prince and queen command,” Ser Brienne said with a bow, then rose to remove herself to the pavilion. 

Arya’s breath came quicker in her chest as a dark shadow entered the royal box. 

_Oh, gods, he didn’t._

A buzzing of whispers erupted around them, and the prince and queen turned to face the source of the commotion. 

The speakers cut with a pitched squeak, but the initiates could still hear slightly raised voices echoing down from the royal box.

“—insult me in such a manner!” Queen Daenarys was not pleased.

Judging from the fire burning behind her violet eyes, and the bitter grimace on the Prince of Dragonstone’s face, this could get ugly.

But then Prince Arthur placed a hand over his wife’s and knelt his silver head near hers to whisper. 

Arya gasped as Jon’s steel gaze cut straight to hers from across the distance.

Before the queen and the initiates.

Before the bloody realm. 

_Oh, gods, is my family watching this?_

_Stop thinking so much, and focus!_

Then Jon Targaryen did the most shocking thing anyone expected—he smiled. 

The queen opened her eyes and seemed to have perfected her outward mask again. 

Prince Arthur made a gesture and the speakers turned back on. 

The others looked to the queen, but Arya could only stare at Jon’s smile as Daenarys announced in a clear, cultured voice, “Let the melee begin!”

Arya dared flash a wicked smile back at her incredibly _stupid_ and gorgeous boyfriend, before twisting to meet Egg’s unexpected attack. 

The clashing of steel overwhelmed the roar of the crowd only briefly. 

Egg’s dark blue eyes flashed with amusement as Arya’s Needle crossed his own Braavosi blade to the hilt. 

Arya barred her teeth at him and both pushed away from one another at the same time. They turned their backs to one another just in time for Egg to take on a Lannister.

Arya barely fended off Hardyng’s initial assault.

“Give up now, Stark, and I may be merciful,” Harry grunted as he swung his great lumbering sword at her. 

“Pray I take pity on _you,_ little bird.” Arya parted from Egg and danced back, waiting for Hardyng to tire himself out. 

Harry relied upon brute strength, much like Gendry, only his moves were executed with the technical precision known from knights of the Vale.

Harry was difficult to fight conventionally, yet he had taken little to Ser Jon’s unorthodox instruction. Arya would use this to her advantage. 

She kicked dirt up into the air between them, then ducked as she darted under Harry’s swing to cut her blades at his ankles. 

She relished Hardyng's cries as he tried to catch her on his backswing, only to stumble into one of the Reach boys. 

Arya ran, content to let them finish Hardyng off. 

_Good riddance._

The rest of the melee went much like this. 

Each initiate took turns wearing the other down. They had fought and watched one another practice countless times. So it was easier to pick apart opponents that had refused to change and adapt like Hardyng, the Reach boys, and Podrick Payne. 

The Lannisters and Greyjoy were trickier. 

Arya found herself with Egg at her back once more, fending the Lannisters off on one side of the field. 

Greyjoy took on Gendry and Ned, who had kept to each other’s backs this whole time. 

Greyjoy was best with the bow, which didn’t help him in this event, of course. But he was wily, thanks to dedicated practice with wielding the pike against more than one opponent. This gave him an advantage against Gendry’s hammer. 

Luckily, Ned was one of the most gifted swordsmen Arya had ever seen—and they were still in their teens. Ned showed precision, finesse, and a flair for distracting dramatics. He was currently frustrating Greyjoy, who had taken to throwing taunts at the other two. 

Arya couldn’t hear any of this from her corner of the field, of course. She was too focused on avoiding the dagger-wielding Lannister slashing away at her. 

The other Lannister—Arya could never remember their actual names—matched blows with Egg. 

Arya and Egg made a good team, seeming to anticipate one another’s feints and dodges. Once, they even switched opponents. 

Egg pressed a hand to Arya’s hip. She whirled to his opposite side, allowing Egg to dart past her guard to slash along the Lannister’s torso. 

Arya caught the other Lannister’s short blades before they could catch Egg’s back. 

Sweat slid down her neck and she focused on keeping her breathing even through her nose. 

The Lannister noticed their lover’s fall and hesitated.

It was a mistake. 

Egg twisted around, knocked one of their blades aside, and allowed Arya to make the mock-killing blow. Her Needle pricked the Lannister prick’s neck with a slight dash. 

A pair of furious green eyes found hers before the Lannister lowered his weapons, then darted around them to help their cousin up and off the field. 

Arya laughed and shared a brief grin with Egg.

Her smile faded as she realized it was them and Ned left on the field.

_Shit, where is Gendry!_

Arya couldn’t see her best friend and found Ned’s wary face with a knowing grimace. Starfall looked towards the stands where the others had retreated with murder in his eyes. Greyjoy must have bested Gendry after all. 

_Fucking squid!_

Arya glanced up and found Jon’s heated gaze waiting for her. “Fear cuts deeper than swords,” she chanted. 

Ned approached them slowly and the crowd’s chanting began to dim as the three initiates slowly faced one another. 

Egg took cautious steps back from Arya and kept much of his focus on Ned. 

Arya clenched her teeth together and searched for the voice, the words she needed to hear most now. Yet it wasn’t Syrio Forell she heard this time.

 _“I will never leave you,”_ he'd promised. 

No matter if she won today or if she remained, they would find a way. She had to believe that now. She had to look past herself and what she thought she wanted. 

_Even if none of it matters without him_.

They moved together at once, a whirling clash and retreat of blades. 

Each was evenly matched in different ways, and so they took their time. All three were exhausted from besting their peers. This event couldn’t be won by skill alone, but by wits and daring in spades. 

Ned nearly broke through Arya’s guard first. It was by miracle of Jon’s gifted dagger that Arya managed to throw him off, kick the back of his knee and whirl away.

His blade still nearly caught her retreat. It surely would have if not for Egg’s counterattack. 

And so Arya circled them, waiting for her moment. 

The last thing she expected was for Egg and Ned to turn on her just before she could break through their guard. 

Arya fell against the weight of their blades. Her knees sank into mud and blood and she cried out as Ned broke first to cut Arya’s chest. 

A slash over the heart. 

A distant roar echoed somewhere in the distance, the roar of a dragon. 

Tears sprung to Arya’s eyes and Ser Brienne’s words echoed in her head, _“It is one thing to train in the yard with a blunted sword in hand, and another to battle your friends.”_

Ned’s pained gaze met her own, and then he looked down to notice Arya had allowed him to break through, to catch his thigh with her dagger. 

_I’m sorry, Ned._

Her best friend stumbled back, clutching his leg with a groan.

Both turned to Egg, who stood unmaimed and unsmiling. Egg, who had wisely avoided attachments or conversation with anyone the whole time at Blades. Egg who was the last man standing. 

He bowed low to each of them at the waist. When he rose, the crowd rose to their feet with a roar. 

Ned’s bloody hand appeared before Arya.

She sheathed her blades, then let her best friend help her stand.

“Well done, Stark,” Ned said against her ear. 

Arya clutched Ned's shoulder and leaned her head against his as Ser Brienne reappeared on the field. 

For a moment, Arya forgot her blood was staining her tunic and leathers red, because her hero was looking right at them and _beaming_. 

Ser Brienne nodded to Ned and Arya before passing them. 

Arya’s heart sank as she watched her hero go to Egg’s side, lift his hand with hers, then raise it above his head. 

“We have a champion, my Queen!”

The crowd cheered again as Prince Arthur rose to his feet, hands spread wide. Queen Daenerys wore a chagrined smile as she looked upon the champion. She glanced at her husband, then joined Ser Arthur at his side. 

The crowd instantly hushed and waited for the queen to speak. 

“Well done, Initiate Targaryen.”

Arya swallowed her gasp as she looked first to Egg, then for Jon. 

_Wait, where is Jon?_

“Targaryen?” Ned hissed from her side. 

Arya frowned as the queen continued to address Egg, “—have earned your spurs, Initiate…”

She would worry about him being a bloody secret Targ later. Where in seven hells was Jon?

Raised voices sounded from the tent the other initiates had retreated to for medical attention. 

“Arya, what are you doing?” Ned grunted against her. "The queen's looking at us."

Arya shook her head as a dark figure burst past Sers Jamie and Bron.

She sucked in a breath through her teeth as Jon Targaryen fixed his gaze upon her. 

Several gasps echoed around the stands as the stoic and rarely-seen dark Prince of Dragonstone stalked across the bloody field.

Ser Brienne was saying something more to Egg, but Arya completely missed the moment her dreams passed on to another. 

Because Jon had come for her. 

He was suddenly _there_ , breathing heavily and glaring at Ned with shaking clenched fists, as though he were ready to destroy him. 

_“I’ll destroy you_ ,” Jon had once told her. 

Arya blinked back fresh tears because no one ever came for her. She was always the one to rescue her siblings when she felt they were being bullied or threatened. She was the one being left behind while they went on to do grander, nobler things. She was not the one people _chose_. 

“Jon?” Arya barely whispered his name, and he returned his focus to her. His face crumpled as though he were the one in pain. 

“You need a maester, come.” He reached a black-gloved hand for her. 

Arya ignored Ned’s whispered protests as she took Jon’s hand and let him gather her into his side. She knew her family and the queen were watching and somehow couldn’t care less. Because Jon had come for her. 

_Jon will want me, even if no one else does._

She couldn’t stop smiling. 

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

Jon hadn’t stopped muttering curses about Edric Dayne, and _bloody_ Hardyng since the maester stripped Arya down to her sports bra. The tattered remains, after the master cut the support free, barely covered her small breasts, much to Jon's obvious frustration. When he wasn't cutting harsh glares at the other initiates in the tent, he was narrowing his gaze at the poor nervous maester.

She couldn’t help snickering and therefore frustrating the maester attempting to stitch her back together as a result. 

“Please, Lady Stark, I must insist you hold still.” 

Arya looked at Jon and found his handsome face possessed a mirror to her grin. She bit her lip and his gray gaze fixed to the motion, then darkened. 

Her breath hitched, providing the stillness the maester required. 

The tent burst open with a flap of swirling white skirts and silver hair. Daenerys Stormborn lived up to her name, Arya soon found. She barely afforded Arya a curious glance before bearing down on her taller nephew, at first in High Valyrian. 

Arya glanced from Jon’s scowl to the other side of the tent where her fellow initiates gaped at this unexpected appearance of their queen. Ned seemed fit to burst from his wounded boyfriend’s side. 

“And furthermore!” the Dragon Queen continued in common, “You will explain _why_ you felt the damnable need to interrupt _my_ speech to Egg when you already _knew_ how much I disapproved of his joining Blades! The least you could have done was cause less of a scene, over yet _another Stark_. But _no,_ you are apparently exactly like my brother and cannot restrain yourself!”

Jon took several deep calming breaths before replying, “Egg can’t speak for himself, that’s why I went behind your back to Selmy. He has been _my_ ward since Father died, don’t forget. And Initiate Stark is _none of your concern_ ,” he ground out the last.

“Neither should she be _your_ concern, nephew,” Daenerys warned. 

Arya’s nails bit into her palms and she wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry over the utter insanity that was her life. She hadn’t dared hope Jon would ever claim her publicly in any way, and she certainly hadn’t expected to be in the middle of a fight between her lover and her queen. 

_This is worse than one of Sansa’s soap operas._

The last made Arya giggle, then hiss as the needle pricked too deeply into her chest. 

“Lady Stark,” the maester pled.

Jon turned from Daenerys at Arya’s hiss, his brow furrowing with fresh concern. “Easy, love, you need to hold still.” He covered one of Arya’s fists with his too-warm hand. 

The queen gasped. “Jaehaerys… _please_ , I am begging you to leave this alone. At the very least, stay hidden for the ball later tonight.” 

_His name is Jaehaerys._

Arya’s brow lifted as she met Jon’s gaze. And then she recalled the rest of the queen’s words with growing terror. She’d forgotten all about the celebratory ball and feast. 

Families from across the kingdoms and across the Narrow Sea, even as far as Nymerios, would be attending. Not all the knights, squires, or initiates would be up for the affair. Arya’s injury was rather mild compared to some, like Gendry’s.

_Bloody Greyjoy._

But they’d all at least put on their finest to attend, confined to a chair or not. Catelyn had sent Arya a hideous dress for the occasion.

 _My family_. How could she have forgotten her family?

Jon hadn’t answered his aunt immediately. This did not please the queen, who took on a more commanding air as she pressured her nephew.

“I believe you have caused enough of a sensation today, Prince Jaehaerys. You are needed by Headmaster Selmy to prepare for Egg’s initiation ceremony, are you not?”

Jon’s grip tightened over Arya’s fist. She opened her palm and threaded their fingers together. This seemed to ground him enough to bow his head and reply, “As you wish, my queen.”

His thumb brushed over the pulse at her wrist before he pulled away. 

“There, all done, my lady.” The maester had covered her stitches with a patch of gauze and tape. 

Queen Daenerys hadn’t spoken since Jon left, but her voice drew Arya’s startled gaze now. “Did you know you look almost identical to your aunt?”

Arya blinked. “I—that is, I only learned this recently, your Majesty.”

Unnerving, ethereal violet eyes observed her with something akin to resignation. “Did you also know my brother nearly tore the kingdoms apart for your aunt?”

Arya nodded and battled a grimace. “Yes, your Majesty.”

The queen lifted her chin, and her features twisted with grief in a manner eerily similar to Jon. “I pray your family will remember our history, that we may not repeat that tragedy, Lady Stark.”

Arya said nothing. 

Daenerys pursed her lips, seemingly on the verge of more words Arya didn’t want to hear. Finally, her rigid posture eased, and the ghost of a smile graced her lips as she added, “You fought well today, Lady Stark.”

With those words, the Queen of Westeros departed the tent, and Arya released the breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding. 

She braced her seat at the edge of the bench and hung her head. Her stitches pulled painfully at her chest, but the painkillers were dulling her other aches and bruises. Enough to allow her to think about all that had happened and the long night to come. 

Egg Targaryen may have won his spurs today, but Arya wasn’t giving up. 

And no matter what anyone, her family, or the bloody queen said, she was never giving up Jon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cursed myself when I tried to put a limit on these chapters, lol. YES, there is one more chapter left. I initially thought I could pack everything into Chapter 6, but then ended up fleshing the big event and aftermath in greater detail. I hope everyone enjoyed! In the next chapter, we'll have the ball, the Starks, and hints to what's to come for Jonrya :) Thanks for reading!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She turned a slow circle and considered snatching a glass of liquid courage when the hairs at the back of her neck prickled. Arya shivered as she glanced over her shoulder and caught his darkly silver gaze from across the room.   
> In a sea of house colors and proudly worn sigils, Jon Targaryen somehow still managed to draw shadows from around him like a cloak.

Arya smoothed the skirt of the ridiculous silk dress her sister had sent. A high neckline hid evidence of the bandage over her heart. It did not cover all her bruises, nor the faint outline of teeth marks on Arya’s shoulder. Without sleeves, and a sizable slit in the flowing skirt, the dress was unseemly for a Northern design, and precisely why Sansa had sent it behind Catelyn’s back. The alternative her mother had shipped looked like something a septa might have worn a hundred years ago. 

A year ago, Arya wouldn’t have cared two crowns what she looked like. 

The fresh memory of Jon Targaryen striding across the pit _for her_ replayed in her mind. 

_Will he like it?_

The embroidered crystals sewn into the bodice snagged on Arya’s calluses and the girl in the mirror flinched. 

_What are you doing?_

Arya sighed. “Stop stalling and just go,” she told the woman in the mirror. 

With this thought, her best friend appeared over her shoulder. “I must say, you clean up well, Stark.” 

Arya turned to find Gendry watching them with a drugged-out grin on his face. “Did you hear your boyfriend hitting on me?”

“S’fine.” Gendry smiled. “We agreed you’d be the only person we’d have a threesome with.” 

Ned coughed into his fist. “What Gendry _means_ …” he sputtered.

“Oh, gods,” Arya groaned through unwelcome laughter. “I have got to get out of here before Bull kills me.” 

“Easy, there, Stark. We can’t have your stitches coming out before your debut. And that makeup isn’t going to last forever.” Ned squeezed her shoulder and cut a death glare at his boyfriend that clearly read— _talking about this later_.

Arya allowed Ned to carefully wipe the tears from her eyes. “I still can’t believe you know how to do this better than me. I’ve never seen you put on foundation, let alone eye-liner.”

“I already explained, Stark,” Ned grumbled. 

“I don’t know what brother does his sister’s makeup every day.” 

“Not _every_ day! Just for special occasions.” 

“Methinks the lord protests too much…” Arya narrowed her gaze at her boys. “You know, I should kill the both of you for leaving me alone to face the wolves on my own.”

Ned shrugged. “Gendry’s not fit to be anywhere beyond that bed, and _I’m_ certainly not going without him.”

Gendry giggled. “He means he’s scared of his aunt.

“Am not!”

“He almost wet himself when she showed up in the med-tent,” Gendry chortled.

“Did not!”

Arya caught Ned’s hand with hers. “I still can’t believe you didn’t recognize Egg. Isn’t he technically your cousin?”

Ned threw up an arm at the otherwise empty dormitory. “How was I supposed to recognize someone I haven’t seen in five years? He has _blue hair_!”

Gendry held his stomach with a groan and pressed against where Greyjoy had nearly driven him through with his pike. 

Ned cursed and stumbled to his boyfriend’s bedside. “Don’t you start, Waters. No more laughing or the maester will have our heads for pulling out your stitches, _again_.”

Arya spared one last cursory look at her reflection. A sponge bath around her wounds hadn’t made her feel very clean. She wasn’t just black and blue on her arms. “I look like shit.”

“You look beautiful,” Bull insisted on a sigh. 

Arya turned to find true affection in her best friends’ gazes. “Aw, hells, c’mere.” She ducked plant kisses on their cheeks.

Ned sighed. “Hands off the lady, Waters.”

“Arya,” Gendry whined, “don’ dance with tha’ bloody prince tonight, please? ‘Member, you’re _our_ girl.”

Ned ran a hand over his face and favored Arya with a look. “Please don’t linger on our account. Clearly Bull has lost his mind. Although…I really _would_ love to know why Ser Jon was so _insistent_ you see a maester before the rest of the queen’s speech. And he even remained by your side until _she_ sent him away.”

Arya nearly stumbled back several steps. This was what she had been dreading, ever since they’d hobbled back to the dormitory after being released by the maester.

Ned’s purple gaze held hers, expectant. 

Gendry was delirious, thank the gods. Bull would have known what was really going on right away were he lucid.

“I’m not sticking around for _you_ sods. I just don’t want to face my family, remember?”

Ned chuckled. “Ah, yes, the mighty Starks.” 

Arya snorted and pressed a hand to her bandaged chest. Jon bore a similar mark over his torso. Would they match now? She was too lost to memories of tracing his scars with her tongue to notice Ned’s laughter abruptly faded. 

She did catch the way Gendry’s eyes widened as he stared past Arya’s shoulder.

“What?” She frowned as she turned, then gasped.

Egg’s blue hair had been tied neatly behind his head. He’d dressed in a suit of black and red leather. Cut more like armor, it showed off his broad shoulders and tapered waist. A Braavosi sword hung from his belt.

Arya tilted her chin up to meet his indigo gaze. “Well hello, _your highness_.”

Egg rolled his eyes and his lips quirked in a lop-sided smile as he ducked his head. Arya’s breath caught as he looked up at her with open affection and warmth. Why was he looking at her like that? 

Straightening his posture in the effortless way of royals, Egg extended his hand. His smile wavered when Arya didn’t immediately accept. 

Egg was going to be Ser Brienne of Tarth’s squire after the ceremony tonight. Knights did not always take on new squires, and they never took more than one. He had taken her childhood dream, though he didn’t know it. And yet…

Arya slipped her calloused palm into his larger hand. “I’d love to.”

She caught Ned and Gendry’s awestruck looks as Egg led her out of the dormitory. 

_Too late to turn back now._

Arya gathered her skirts with her free hand as they began their descent down the winding staircase. 

Voices and music echoed against the stone walls from the ground floor. At least the ball would be held here instead of the grand hall. Hopefully, the cameras would be kept away as well. Arya drew in a deep breath and tried not to think of what may become of them after tonight. 

How many events would she train for, before her time to be chosen would come? 

_If it comes._

Egg shifted her hand to rest over his elbow, effectively drawing her attention. His lips remained closed but his eyes practically glowed, and Arya wondered how she’d completely missed _seeing_ him for who he was. Now that she knew, she marveled over the perfect blend of Targaryen, pieces of Daenerys and Jon. 

His pale eyebrows rose as her smile tugged at her cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I just can’t believe you fooled everyone for so long. Are...are you the queen’s brother?”

Egg’s expression darkened and he shook his head, his steps faltering just shy of the landing. The young prince had been kept away from the public since childhood, she vaguely recalled. Since coming to Blades, Arya had never once heard him speak. She wondered if he was incapable, or his lack of speech came from another, terrible, source. 

Arya squeezed his arm. “Are you Jon’s brother, then?”

Again that sudden, fierce warmth in his gaze, that knowing smile. 

“Oh…I’m glad he has someone, then. I’m glad you have each other.”

Egg arched a single eyebrow and touched a single finger over Jon’s love bite on the crux of her shoulder. 

“Oh gods,” she groaned. 

Egg shook with silent laughter. 

Arya shook her head and turned to face the inquisition ahead. “They’ll just assume it’s another bruise from the tourney, right?” She froze as the implication behind Egg’s knowing touch settled.

_Wait, he really knows?_

“He told you,” she whispered. Arya shouldn’t speak of such things, not even to Jon’s little brother. Not in the Red Keep.

A smile tugged at the corner of Egg’s mouth as he nodded. Yet he didn’t bother to mask his concerned expression. 

“It’s fine.” She nodded to herself. “It’s going to be fine.”

It wasn’t. 

Egg briefly pressed his too-warm forehead to Arya’s and her breathing slowed. 

“Thank you,” she breathed as Egg pulled away with a soft smile. 

“There you two are!” 

Arya jerked back and clenched her fist to stop reaching for the dagger beneath her skirts. 

Ser Jamie Lannister approached them with a golden smile. “Did you forget you’re the guest of honor tonight, Aegon?”

Egg caught Arya’s hand with his in a tight grasp. Tension bled from his too-tight frame as Ser Jamie led them into the ballroom.

“I must say, I’m glad you two decided to arrive _together_ .” The older knight winked at Arya, much to her annoyance. This, of course, only deepened the Lannister’s grin. “Between the reveal of the _hidden prince_ , and Ser Jon’s dramatic display on the field…well, you can _imagine_ the scandal. I should be thanking you, really. It’s a nice change, being out of the limelight.” 

Arya bit her tongue. Annoying or not, Sers Jamie and Brienne had been lovers for years, which meant he must be more than a brilliant bladesmaster. 

Ser Jamie paused at the open door to the converted ballroom. 

Arya’s gaze swept over the sea of glamorous heads, searching for familiar shocks of Tully red. 

Her stomach turned and she didn’t know she squeezed Egg’s hand so tightly until he ducked his head to meet her eye.

 _You can do this,_ he seemed to say.

Arya clenched her jaw and nodded firmly. “You’re right.”

“Hmm?” Ser Jamie turned and cocked his head. “Right...well, if you’re done with whatever this is, time to face the wolves!” He chuckled at his own joke before leading the way through the crowd. 

Arya pasted a smile on her face as the “who’s who” of Westeros began to speak over them.

“Congratulations, your highness!” 

“Well fought today, Lady Stark!”

“What a thrilling bout! Best tourney I’ve seen in ten years.”

“You really _must_ give me the number to your stylist, dear.”

 _Fuck off,_ Arya thought behind her smile.

It was a relief when Ser Brienne appeared, in a richly tailored pants-suit, looking more glamorous than they’d ever seen. “At last! Jamie, I was expecting you back an hour ago.”

Jamie Lannister caught a glass from a passing waiter and winked at his superior. “I _did_ look. These two finally decided to come down after their lover’s tryst.” 

“Jamie,” Ser Brienne groaned with exasperation.

Arya opened her mouth to protest when Egg nudged a warning into her side. He squeezed her hand one last time before releasing her. 

“Aegon?” Ser Brienne, noticed her new squire approach and nodded. “Come, Headmaster Selmy wanted to speak with you before the ceremony. Initiate Stark, how lovely you arrived together. You both fought well today.” 

Ser Brienne’s smile didn’t completely remove the sting of failure. 

“Don’t suppose you’d save me a dance, my lady?” Ser Jamie trailed after his love, and Arya was suddenly alone in a crowded room. 

Her hands caught in her skirts, slivers of silver catching her ragged palms. The “who’s who” seemed to have forgotten she existed now her tall, blue-haired prince had fled. And now Arya wondered if her family had truly come like they promised they would. 

She turned a slow circle and considered snatching a glass of liquid courage when the hairs at the back of her neck prickled. Arya shivered as she glanced over her shoulder and caught _his_ darkly silver gaze from across the room. 

In a sea of house colors and proudly worn sigils, Jon Targaryen somehow still managed to draw shadows from around him like a cloak. No one seemed to have noticed him from his dim corner, and seeing the way his dark armor clung to him—the same he wore every day—Arya thought them all fools. He was dark where Egg had been silver and light, much like the Dragon Queen. Jon was the dark side of their moon, the absence of their splendor.

He had moved like a fury across the stadium hours before. He had done the unthinkable in touching her, all but claiming her in front of the entire kingdoms. 

No one ever came for her until Jon.

Her lips parted as he took a step from the shadows. She felt his movement within her chest, an ever-present tug and pull, a need to lessen the distance. 

The music and the crowd dulled to a muffled hum somewhere beyond everything but her uneven breaths, the pain in her lingering wounds and feet as she trod around people in low heels. 

Jon’s lips tugged up at the corners, and then the crowd surged between them. 

Arya grumbled as she tried to navigate her way back to him, following her inner gravity. Another flash of his silver gaze when—

“Arya!” Sansa Stark appeared in a blur of ruby and sapphire, and then her long arms were wrapped painfully tight around Arya. 

“Gods, that was bloody _terrifying_. I don’t know how anyone can condone something so barbaric.” Sansa pulled away and cast a critical eye over the dress she’d fashioned. “You aren’t bleeding at least, I see.”

“Sansa, give your sister some room,” a deep voice teased. 

“Daddy?” Arya gasped and practically shoved Sansa aside to jump into their father’s arms. 

_Fuck!_ She nearly swore aloud at the pain in her chest. 

Her father was quick to catch her, laughter in his rich voice as he admonished her. “Careful, little wolf.”

Arya smiled and pushed the pain aside. “Oh, gods, I missed you.” 

“What about the rest of us?” Sansa scoffed. 

Ned pressed a gentle bearded kiss to her forehead before setting Arya back on her feet. His smile, she noticed, didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You fought bravely today, holding your own against those lads.” 

Arya didn’t dare try to speak. This is what she’d been most afraid of since Egg won the field. To face her family with how little they understood her dream. To know that dream would never come true…

“At least now we can finally put your ridiculous notions of becoming a knight behind us,” Catelyn interrupted. 

Arya clutched her father’s arms and briefly closed her eyes to tamper her rage. Her chest ached like a bitch, and she wasn’t sure how long she could maintain a cool facade. 

“Mother,” Arya greeted as she turned and opened her eyes. “This isn’t a _phase_. This is my life.”

“We can discuss this later.” 

If there was one thing her mother was good at, it was ignoring everything she didn’t wish to see or hear. Catelyn was dressed in Tully blue and Stark gray colors. Her dress was sophisticated without revealing as much as Sansa’s. Yet her mother was still a beautiful woman, and Arya nearly flinched at the disapproval in her gaze.

“Have you already packed your trunk?” Catelyn asked. “No matter, we can ask one of the servants. We aren’t staying another day in this wretched city, that’s for certain.” 

She gaped as her mother continued to drone on about _their_ plans. Arya clenched her fists until the silver slivers in her skirts cut into her palms and bitter tears stung her eyes. 

Her grimace softened as Jory Cassel threaded his way to their sides. Arya opened her mouth to greet the man who’d stopped her from escaping into the Wolfswood at age three, only for him to interrupt. 

“Lord Stark? A word, sir.” 

“Back in one moment, little wolf,” her father murmured with a gentle press of her shoulder. 

Arya frowned as she watched her father’s head of security gesture and trade nervous glances with Ned. 

“I see your sister was too liberal with her design, _again_.” Catelyn had moved on to a predictably critical assessment of her appearance.

Sansa rolled her eyes and took a sip of Dornish Red. “Honestly, Mother, this isn’t the Dark Ages anymore. Showing a little skin _is_ acceptable, and Arya isn’t a child. She can do what she wants.” 

Some of the ringing in her ears faded as Arya registered her sister’s words. 

Sansa winked and snatched their mother’s arm. “Have you called Bran yet?” She turned back to Arya. “He so wanted to come, of course. But _someone_ thought he and Rickon should stay home with our big brother.”

Catelyn shook her head. “You shouldn’t encourage their rebellion, Sansa.” The rest of their mother’s newest tirade faded with the blur of voices and music overhead. 

Arya sighed and watched as Jory left her father’s side with renewed purpose, but not before sparing Arya a nervous glance. Her frown deepened. 

“Forgive me, little wolf. What did I miss?” Ned placed a hand at her lower back and leaned closer to hear her reply. 

Arya looked about the room, the way the Lannisters watched Jory’s exit, Harrold Hardyng’s awful smile. “What’s going on?” she said through gritted teeth. “Why is everyone acting so strangely?” 

Ned kept a fatherly smile on his face while leaning closer to murmur, “All is not well in the Capitol, and I fear it will only grow worse after tonight. I’ve sent Jory to make arrangements for us to leave the city tonight.”

Arya blanched and turned to face Ned, uncaring who was watching. “But why?”

Ned opened his mouth, as though to answer, then met her gaze with growing reluctance. He shook his head and ran a comforting hand along her upper back. “Trust your father when I tell you it’s no longer safe for us here. The safest place for you is North, and that is where I intend us to be until the South’s troubles die down.”

Jon had hinted at something similar the night before. Was this partly why the queen had wanted him to go to Dragonstone? Everyone knew the best of the queen’s navy was stationed on Dragonstone. 

Knights were protectors of the realm. There hadn’t been an open war in Arya’s lifetime, but she knew the stories, had heard what pain the former king’s choices had wrought over his people. 

_“I pray your family will remember our history, that we may not repeat that tragedy,”_ the queen’s voice echoed in her thoughts.

Arya pressed a raw hand to her chest and blinked against the blur of overhead lights. 

“Lords and Ladies, Sers and honored guests,” Headmaster Selmy spoke into the microphone on stage. “Blades Royal Academy has long been held as the standard for excellence. Knights of legend are born here, and today’s tourney proved no exception as Initiate Aegon Targaryen took the field…”

“Wait here. I’ll be right back,” her father said before leaving to collect Sansa and Cat. 

_Shit, he thinks we’re leaving right now?_

Arya struggled for breath against her panic. 

_I can’t leave. I won’t leave without Jon._

She needed to find Jon. He’d make sense of this, somehow…

Someone bumped against Arya’s back. She clenched her fists and glanced over her shoulder, then froze. 

_Jon._

He leaned closer, until his front was lightly pressing against her back, his lips barely brushing against her neck. 

Arya quickly faced forward and hated the fear she felt knowing her father was so near. She knew she needed to move away, but he was _here_ and she could suddenly breathe again. She didn’t dare move an inch. 

Jon curled his shoulders forward as he nudged his nose against her ear. “You look beautiful, love.” He hummed low as she sighed his name. 

The headmaster’s voice faded and all thought of her family disappeared as her body tensed and craved his touch. She needed him to take her away, before they saw, before her family saw her face and _knew…_

She looked up to find Egg accepting his gilded spurs from Ser Brienne on stage. The younger Targaryen prince turned to seek them out in the crowd and beamed upon finding Jon just behind her. 

Arya held her breath.

Egg winked the same moment Jon pressed his lips to the back of her neck and whispered, “Come with me? There’s something I wanted to show you.”

Arya bit back a moan as she turned and her cheek rubbed against his beard. His mouth was so close. 

_Too far._

She shivered as he ran a possessive hand over her side. “Not yet. Something’s got my dad spooked, and he thinks we’re all bloody leaving tonight.”

Jon’s grip at her waist tightened and he pressed fully against her, his voice heavy. “I nearly lost you today, Arya. I _will not_ let them take you from me.”

“Jon,” she bit her lip. “They’ll see.”

Her eyelashes fluttered at his dark chuckle. “After today, are you truly convinced I care what anyone thinks? _Let them see._ ”

Arya started to turn into his arms when rough fingers caught her wrist and jerked her painfully back. 

“You dare touch my daughter, Blackfyre?” Ned growled low, just beneath the speakers, but loud enough others around them were beginning to take notice. “You have no right.”

Arya caught a glimpse of Theon Greyjoy’s eerie smile in her periphery and grimaced. 

“Daddy,” she attempted, then faltered as Jon took a heavy step forward. 

“I suppose to _you_ , I’m nothing but a bastard. Isn’t that right, _Uncle?_ ” 

“You are no kin of mine.” Ned’s grasp tightened at Arya’s wrist and he shifted his glance, only then noticing her pained reaction. 

Yet, even though Ned’s overreaction _had_ jarred her freshly stitched wounds, it wasn’t her injuries which pained her now.

Jon was all her father could hope to have left of Lyanna. Instead, he chose to reject her only son. 

Instead, he had fashioned Arya into his sister’s replacement. 

Time and again, Ned had allowed his youngest daughter free reign. He rarely went against Catelyn’s demands or interfered with her choices regarding their children. 

Except for when Arya was concerned. 

Headmaster Selmy’s words echoed back in her thoughts, _“Has anyone ever told you how much you look like your Aunt Lyanna?”_

And for the first time, Arya saw the fear behind her father’s anger. 

“Had I known you would be one of my daughter’s _teachers_ , I would never have allowed her to attend this cursed school,” Ned spoke low before drawing Arya even closer. “I’ll be damned if I let another Targaryen harm my family. And now I believe it’s time for you to leave us, as your aunt promised you would, _Prince Jaeherys_.”

Arya hissed, “That was _you_ _?”_

Her father’s grasp on her loosened and he seemed torn between gathering her in his arms and dragging her out of the Red Keep. “I cannot lose you the way I lost her,” he spoke low.

Arya pulled from Ned’s grasp before he could reclaim her and took a staggering step back. “I am _not_ Lyanna. I’m so fucking _sick_ of everyone comparing me to her,” she growled. 

“Arya!” Catelyn hissed, suddenly appearing with an amused Sansa in tow. “You will apologize to your father this instant.”

“I will not,” she replied. 

The queen’s voice had taken over Headmaster Selmy’s, and more people were pretending not to watch and listen to the drama unfolding around them. 

Arya didn’t care anymore. She turned to Jon to find him staring at her as though he’d never seen her before. He looked at her with wide eyes and parted lips. His fury from before refashioned into something else. She spoke to her family but couldn’t tear her gaze from him. “I’m not leaving, but maybe the rest of you should.” 

Jon lifted his hand and held his breath. 

“Arya,” Ned’s choked voice nearly bade her pause. 

“I love you. I’m sorry,” she murmured as Arya chose to accept Jon’s hand. 

He wasted no time in leading her away. 

People turned surprised as the Prince of Dragonstone led the Stark initiate away from the great hall at a brisk pace. 

Arya bit her lip and didn’t dare let him know she was in pain as they darted through the Red Keep.

Her heart raced and she blinked back tears at the thought of her father, her mother, of what they had asked the queen to do. 

She’d heard rumors and stories of what happened between her aunt and King Rhaegar. But for the first time, she was certain her family had chosen to believe in a lie for comfort. And if she had left with them tonight, she’d be living a lie for the rest of her life. 

She tugged back on Jon’s hand until he allowed her to pause to pull off her heels. Arya left the shoes where they lay. 

“Let’s go,” she said between breaths. 

A shadow crossed Jon’s face as his eyes quickly took every inch of her in. His chest rose and fell rapidly as he closed the distance between them. “Do you trust me?”

She craned her neck as he slipped his hand through her complicated updo and replied, “Yes.” 

Jon closed his eyes as he pressed his forehead to hers. “Gods, you’re so much more than I deserve, Arya.” 

She pressed a hand to his chest and leaned back to take in the hall behind them. She couldn’t shake the fear Jory, or one of her father’s men would yet turn up. “We shouldn’t stay here.” 

Jon nodded and threaded their fingers together. “I have friends in the palace too, love. No one is stealing you away from me tonight.” 

She nodded and breathed easier as Jon and led her on at a slower pace. 

“I’m sorry we couldn’t leave sooner,” he said. “I was afraid something like this would happen, but I had promised Egg…” 

“I’m glad you waited,” Arya confessed. She shook her head as anger over her family’s betrayal stung. “Egg is lucky to have a brother like you.” 

Jon was silent as they reached the corridor leading to the small hall. “Today, in the tourney… I couldn’t take my eyes off you.” 

Arya snorted. “Yeah, 'cause you were afraid your brother would stick me with the pointy end?” 

“That too.” Jon didn’t hide his growing smile. “I have never seen anything as beautiful as you looked today, beating men twice your size.”

“It still wasn’t good enough.” She stared at her silvery skirts to mask her blush.

Jon paused and tipped her chin to meet his narrowed gaze. “I told you from the beginning that you are the best, Arya. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Even Egg agrees.”

Arya gaped at him and her feet moved of their own accord as they entered the small hall. “But...if that’s true, why didn’t I win?”

Jon laughed, a genuine-honest-to-gods laugh, and said, “But you didn’t _lose_ , Arya.”

He pushed open the door to the Blades gym.

Arya blinked as, rather than being greeted with modern overhead lights, she faced the sudden reflection of dozens of lit candelabra.

At the center of the otherwise empty floor, sat a long ancient-looking box covered in High Valyrian writing. 

“Jon?” Arya barely managed his name. 

Jon took both her hands in his and pulled her to a gentle halt before the box. “Arya,” he spoke her name, drawing her gaze to his. “You chose me tonight when you had every reason not to. I made you a promise that I intend to keep, but only if you wish it.”

Her brow furrowed as Jon released one hand into his jacket pocket and then placed a cool metal object into her palm. 

Arya opened her hand and looked down. Tears blurred her vision the instant she’d confirmed the dragonglass spurs he’d just given her. “ _Jon_ ,” she rasped. 

He knelt before her, beside the box, and slowly unlatched it. “I should warn you, I have never taken a squire before, Arya Stark.”

A sob passed her lips before she could contain it as Jon pulled _Dark Sister_ from within the Valyrian casing. 

He turned back to her, still on his knees, and carefully held the blade up between them. 

Arya’s fist closed over her spurs. “You can’t possibly give me this, Jon. I don’t deserve it.” 

Jon’s smile seemed to glow brighter in the flickering candlelight. Again she was struck by his other-worldliness, struck with proof he could never be _just_ a man. Not to her.

“You have already forsaken your family, as I have mine, as every knight is asked to do. You chose _me_ …” his voice broke and he swallowed, his words a gentle rasp. “You are the only worthy one I will ever know or have, Arya Stark."

She closed her eyes and tears spilled over her cheeks as she hissed, “You fucking _planned_ all of this, didn’t you?” Her suspicion was confirmed as she opened her eyes and found Jon’s wicked grin reflected in the rippled steel of Visenya Targaryen’s blade. 

“I warned you from the beginning what saying yes to me would mean. But you _do_ have a choice, love. I didn’t want to do this in front of my aunt’s fucking court. Because you don’t belong to _them_ , and never will so long as I draw breath.”

He lifted _Dark Sister_ higher, and all guile fell away, replaced with the kind of fervent devotion she’d never dreamed of seeing reflected back at her. “I choose you, Arya Stark. Take your spurs and your blade and I swear, by my father's and mother's gods, I will never leave your side. I will begin and end wars if you ask me. I will take you from Nymerios to Ashai if that’s your wish. Let me show you the world as I’ve seen it. Let me give you everything in my power, only say _yes_.” 

Arya reached a trembling hand past the hilt of _Dark Sister_ to cup Jon’s warm cheek.

His gaze heated as she bent until their lips brushed, until she could breathe his breath as she whispered the word he needed most.

"Yes.”

༻✦༺ ༻✧༺ ༻✦༺

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Okay, first of all, thank you so much to everyone who shared extra love and support while I wrote (and battled this final chapter) <3 You're all lovely and I don't deserve you, but you're the best readers and fellow writers a shipper could ever ask for ;) 
> 
> I had so many ideas for rounding out this foray into the world of Blades Academy. But WOW the story took on such a life of its own. I feel like we could write an endless number of sequels going into exactly the political troubles Stark, Targaryen, and company hint about in these final chapters. For those of you who are still curious, yes, it has something to do with everyone's hang-ups over the potential of Jon and Arya. But really, that's only scratching the surface.
> 
> I'm happy to say that Jon and Arya are determined to live their own lives, free from everyone else's machinations. With Jon, Arya will have that freedom to still become a knight (between lots of sex and adventures of course). With Arya, Jon has someone who can truly see and love him for who he is. Sighs... 
> 
> Side note: I DID consider ending this with some lovely smut, but it didn't feel right to me. Even though in my headcanon, that's exactly what they do. (Maybe a one-smut-shot for the next Jonrya week? ;p) 
> 
> I'd love to hear your thoughts about what could potentially happen next for this verse in the comments! 
> 
> Meanwhile, I'm refocusing on finishing up The Red Hood, so look for more action/adventure there to come. 
> 
> Happy reading, friends!


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